


Some We Give To, and They Make Us Grow

by price_of_sal



Category: The Haunting of Bly Manor (TV)
Genre: 1987, Alternate Ending, Dom/sub Undertones, Eventual Smut, F/F, Fix-It of Sorts, Found Family, Romance, To Hell With Dead Lesbian Tropes, moody
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-10
Updated: 2021-01-10
Packaged: 2021-03-14 01:08:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 22,798
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28662969
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/price_of_sal/pseuds/price_of_sal
Summary: "“Hold on,” she calls, half jogging outside as Jamie opens the truck door. A silver thread of light shows on the horizon. Somewhere far off, a bird begins its waking song. There is something different about this morning, Dani knows. Fearful whispers that would normally stop her are silent, bound in something left behind the night she went charging into the dark woods."Fix-it fic for the weary-hearted. Romance, friendships, and sexually tense gardening. The last thing I needed in 2020 was to have a promising story and vibrant queer characters fall prey to a plot-fizzling, face-palming "all lesbians die miserable" trope. Not on my watch! Here's hoping you enjoy the, ahem, explosive alternate ending.Self care checkpoint: violence, some weapons, PTSD descriptions, mentions of suicidal ideation.
Relationships: Damie - Haunting of Bly Manor, Dani Clayton/Jamie, Hannah Grose/Owen Sharma
Comments: 11
Kudos: 77





	1. Chapter 1

The wave comes as it always does – on an uncommonly sunny English day. Light comes through the window and breaks in golden streams along the tarnished wood floor, rippling and shimmering with the movement of the trees outside. Jamie brushes aside a brown curl and peers through the glass, trying to make out figures on the street below. I wonder if Dad saw this sun before he went under today. The thought is disembodied, vague. Jamie can’t say why. 

She sighs and turns from the window, struck by the sudden feeling of forgetting something. Her mind is slow and muddled. What was it? Before she can remember, her gaze is caught by the glinting of sunlight beneath a curtain. She kneels down and shifts the fabric, dingy with age. A pile of porcelain shards. A teacup? Jamie’s jaw tightens. “Mickey!” Her hands pushes the pieces together, trying to mend it by will. “Fuck! Mickey, gonna be hell to catch for this. Mu-” She breathes sharply, fighting a sickening mix of confusion and anger. Mum’s gone, why are you prattling on about it?

A startling hiss erupts from the kitchen. Jamie turns and shouts down the hallway. “Mickey!” Silence from the room they share. “Where is that fuckin’ kid,” she mutters, still moving the pieces that rapidly turn to sand in her hands. “Mickey!” Jamie snarls. She rises and stomps toward the hiss, ready to raise hell. Rounding the corner, she sees him then. Four years old. He’d always been so small. Jamie will wonder the rest of her life when she had missed how tall he’d grown. Tall enough to reach at a full stretch the pot of water Jamie forgot about ten minutes ago. Tea, she is dimly aware. She had meant to make tea. 

Mickey has already grasped the handle. Jamie knows in her bones that he is three paces too far, that she will never make it in time, even as her feet leave the floor, even as the scream leaves her lips.

The wave comes crashing out of the tipping pot. A dark, thunderous torrent of hot water, multiplying in a terrifying roar, sweeping away Mickey and the kitchen. It hits Jamie like a train. The flood is so fast and so hard that it overtakes the sunlight itself. Jamie tumbles in the blackness, helpless against the current, feeling the air crushed from her lungs. Blindly, she reaches for Mickey, but doesn’t find him. She never does.  
\--  
Jamie surfaces with a sputtering gasp, clawing out instinctively and panting in the sudden disorienting quiet. Her shirt is wet, the wave…no, she thinks finally, sweat. She is damp with sweat. The familiar contours of her flat materialize in the darkness. Slowly she becomes aware of the heavy blanket smothering her. She throws it off and sits up, trembling at the edge of the mattress. “Fuck,” she whispers, face in her hands. It has been a good long stretch since she’d had this dream, the one she fears the most. The one even her old counselor’s coping methods struggle to calm. Jamie tries them anyway. She exhales to ten. She names the objects around her. None of it works until she makes out the delicate, slotted leaves silhouetted against the street lit window. “Monstera.” Something quiets in her chest and Jamie lets her eyes find every plant, even the ones she can’t quite see in the shadows. When she names them all she starts again and whispers their water needs, how much sunlight they like, if they prefer more acidic soil. The pounding of blood in her ears slows. She checks her watch on the nightstand. 4am. Time for work anyway.  
\--  
The truck chokes in the cold and rumbles to a start. Jamie pats the dashboard affectionately. 

The peaks of velvet green hills jut through the morning fog, islands in a calm sea. Jamie savors these moments of solitude. Savors all moments of solitude, really. She takes a rutted left onto single-track down roads Romans paved, to a house much younger but still glowing in the splendor of antiquity. Bly. She parks and purses her lips at some ivy wending its way too far up the eastern wall. 

“It can wait,” Hannah calls from the shadow of the foyer. Jamie has become accustomed to her sudden appearances. “Tea, love. Then labor.”

“Morning, Hannah.”

“Come on, Owen has biscuits this morning.”

Four kinds of biscuits, Jamie sees with a grin. The kitchen is the only truly warm part of the house. No one gathers anywhere else they may run into memories not yet old enough to lie still. She plucks a shortbread from the platter and plops down at the table.

“Owen, do you ever do anything but bake, mate? Were you up before sunrise just to make this lot?”

Owen swings around with flourish and hands her a steaming cup. “Jamie dear, it’s too early for tea-sing.”

Jamie groans and catches Hannah rolling her eyes, but no one is ever fed up with Owen. “No, no,” he says. “Today is a special day. New acquaintances to be made, and nothing makes fast friends like fresh biscuits.”

Jamie fights the urge to grumble with a sip of tea. “Right. New Au Pair.”

Hannah gestures from the corner. “Should we expect you? I know you often leave early on Fri – ”

“Actually, eh, it’ll have to wait for Monday, yeah.” Jamie rubs the back of her neck absentmindedly. “Gotta pick up fresh soil for the south flowerbeds. Shop closes at four.”

Hannah smiles warmly. “No rush, dear. Monday it is.”

“Kids’ll be right delighted, eh?” Jamie sets down the cup and moves for the door. “Work’s calling. See you.”

Jamie steps outside and assesses the ivy again, her back to the lake. When she walks to get a ladder, she goes the long way and doesn’t look in its direction at all.

\--  
Dani is picked up by a handsome soul who introduces himself as Bly Manor’s chef. She vaguely wonders what she’s gotten herself into, looking at the extravagant luxury of the Rolls Royce. The man takes her small bags to the trunk. Owen exudes a penetrating warmth and keeps the conversation light. The drive is lush, all green hills and stone fences. Dani appreciates the moments she spends gawking unencumbered by socializing. A month in London hostels has nearly made her forget what peace is. They stop twice for sheep trotting lazily across the path. Owen shrugs in the rearview mirror and says, “Sorry, baa-d timing.”

Hannah is at the well, waiting for them. Dani blinks, wondering if she’s gone back in time to behold the queen of some ancient and flawless realm. It takes the woman a moment to acknowledge them, as though she’s lost somewhere in a distant memory. Owen touches her arm, ever so gently, and a light goes on-Hannah’s smile is broad and genuine. She calls to the kids and they materialize from a nearby hedge, sprinting to meet Dani.

Flora’s optimism and Miles’ stuffy maturity are a delight. Dani sees with relief that they are bright for their age, and don’t in the least resemble the grief-ridden zombies she had feared. She takes Flora’s hand and the children’s tour begins.

The grounds are vast. Ancient, gnarled oaks line the property, which sits atop a gentle grade. There is a lake, which Dani notes dryly would be considered more of a pond in America. There are gardens, gardens everywhere: flower beds, vegetables, berries, fruit trees. It must take an army to manage it all. A greenhouse glints in the distance, and a stone chapel that gives Dani the creeps.

“And here is the house!” Flora shouts. A massive, stately edifice; Dani has never seen anything like it outside a storybook. The interior is all hardwood and carved bannisters, chandeliers and bookcases. Dani glances at Hannah, who must have been near to drowning these past weeks watching the kids and tending to this gargantuan home.

The upstairs is a labyrinth of rooms and hallways. Dani grins at Miles and Flora sprinting around, and thinks perhaps it isn’t so cruel to keep kids somewhere with ample space for unlimited imaginations. Dani’s own room is big enough to host a ball. The suitcase and bag she’s lived out of for weeks seem pathetically miniature. The rest of the tour is a whirlwind of giggles and hilarious descriptions from Flora: “And this is a room with chairs in it!”… Until they arrive at a large door, which leads to the eastern wing. The sight of it inspires sudden silence from Miles and reduces Flora’s voice to a peep. “That’s the Forbidden wing,” she says, twisting a toe against the floor. 

Dani frowns at Owen, who offers a half shrug and says “Boss’ orders.” A ghostly memory passes through her: walking through her father’s closet after the funeral, touching all that was once his. Children should not be sheltered from grief. It’s a battle that will have to wait.

Afternoon turns to evening in a blur. Dani takes in the classroom, an enchanting library. There is even an antique brass telescope replete with rolled vellum star maps. At some point during the adventure, Owen disappears and whips up a feast: roast chicken and beets, steamed spinach, some kind of risotto. Dani tries to be conscious of her manners but inhales the meal despite herself. There are four kinds of cookies that make her wonder when the last time was that she tasted such divinity. She catches Owen’s look of satisfaction as she picks her crumbs from the plate.

The meal is the last straw for the kids, who wander upstairs bleary-eyed from endless show and tell. Dani keeps the goodnight short with Miles, who she can sense she shouldn’t press too soon. Flora’s room is the picture of neatness (Hannah’s doing, she guesses), all including an absolutely massive model of Bly Manor itself. Flora shows her each terrifying handmade figurine, and Dani silently laments the existence of dolls entirely. She smiles and tucks blankets around Flora, who watches her between yawns.

Dani pats the covers. “Goodnight, sweetie, thanks for showing me around today.”

“Ms. Clayton?” She turns from the doorway. “I need you to make a promise.”

“What’s that?”

Flora’s expression is too stern for a six-year-old***. “Don’t go out alone at night.”

Dani nods, and wonders what monsters haunt Flora’s nightmares. “I won’t, sweet-pea.”

\--

She wakes once, in the pitch black. Staring at the ceiling, swearing she heard something. But sleep takes her before she can decide what it was.


	2. Chapter 2

Jamie cranks the truck into park and takes a deep breath. The Rolls is in the drive. Its flawless exterior recalls unwanted memories. She pulls the truck around to the flowerbeds. The bags of soil are 50lbs bags each. She relishes the exercise, sweat prickling her skin in the cold. Once the bags lie in a neat row she slits them open with a knife. The scent of fresh earth fills the morning air. She shakes the bags out, stashes them in the truck bed. Jaime grumbles. A headache nudges at the periphery. Caffeine is needed.

She strides into the kitchen, straight for the tea. The new one is there at the table. Some blonde, trying to look natural sipping tea that she clearly detests. That bland accent: an American. So many “yeahs,” all the vowels stretching out like taffy left in the sun. She listens to the hesitant drawl, senses just a hint of edginess. Seems a little uptight, this one.

Jamie doesn’t introduce herself. Even she is a little surprised-it’s not something Jamie Taylor would normally do. But this girl is soft, scared. Too pretty. She won’t last, Jamie thinks. 

\--

Dani sighs, threading her arms through a sweater. Week one, come and gone. The rain pounds on the windows and she hears parts of the old house groaning under gusts of wind. At least the kids had gone to sleep without any complaint, worn out from a muddy day of playing and history lessons. Hannah and Owen had delighted over the subject matter: the American Revolution.

“Are you sure you’re the right person for this?” he muses over breakfast. “Won’t they get a biased lesson from a traitor to the Crown?”

“Hey, give me liberty or give me death. Just don’t tax my tea,” Dani says with a wink.

“Maybe that’s why this one hates tea so much,” Jamie adds, her arm slung casually over the back of her chair. She still hasn’t spoken directly to Dani, in fact been a little snide to her on occasion. Perhaps that is why Dani feels a flash of heat at the jab. 

She levels her eyes at Jamie. “Why do I get the impression you’re criticizing my skills?”

“We all have our talents.” Jamie waves a hand and…is that a smirk? “I shovel dirt. And you’re a right Ms. Poppins.”

Dani sets her fork down and cocks an eyebrow. “Mary Poppins?”

“Aye. That’s what you are. All kids lessons and songs…just need to find a wee umbrella.” Dani feels her nostrils flare and wonders with a rising sense of alarm if Jamie overheard her singing while watching Miles and Flora play tag. 

“I’ll take that as a compliment.” Dani goes back to her breakfast, doing her best not to look at the gardener’s maddening smirk. 

\--

The rain starts in the afternoon, chasing them all indoors. Except Jamie. Dani is annoyed to find her eyes straying often to the windows, wondering how she’s doing out in the sudden cold snap. Six o’clock arrives and Dani herds Flora and Miles from the library, where they have constructed an impressive pillow fort. Dinner is rapidly becoming Dani’s favorite time of day at Bly, a respite from the huge house grown foreboding with the setting of the sun. The kitchen is always warm and fragrant with Owen’s creations. His puns are maddening, but the man can cook.

They set down to eat, Miles describing in detail a spider he caught with his bare hands. Dani catches him sneaking glances to judge her reaction. She nods along and is careful not to look too amused.

“If you name him,” Owen offers, “I vote for Webster.”

Jamie comes in at last, soaking wet with mud clinging to her boots. Dani chuckles at the resigned look Hannah flashes her. The gardener finishes her portion quickly, and stands. She ruffles Flora’s hair and slings her coat back over her slight shoulders. Dani is annoyed again to find herself wishing the she would stay longer. 

\--

Dani hugs her sweater tight and considers turning in, but the storm makes her restless. Something about the day calls for processing alone, without the children’s demanding presence. A craving for escape, solitude and comfort. Dani hasn’t had her hands on a good book in months. What sort of treasures grace the shelves of a house this old? 

The warmer air in the hall girds her confidence in the still unfamiliar surroundings. Skeletons of trees make dancing shadows where windows let in nearly invisible light. Occasionally a floorboard protests under her sock-muffled step. Dani turns the corner of the hallway heading toward the library, ears ringing in the quiet. 

Heavy air hits her skin like a plunge into cold water. She halts with a sharp breath before a unexpectedly open space. It takes her a moment to remember where the door leads: the forbidden wing. She swallows against the flutter in her chest, suppressing a nervous laugh. Just an open door, in a dark house. Nothing spooky about that. But why is it open? She remembers it clearly shut her first day at Bly. She would have noticed it being otherwise. Boss’ orders. Rapid explanations keep pace with her heart-Hannah forgot to close it after dusting, the kids being kids, the battering wind finding its way into an old house, pushing doors ajar. Each rationalization seems likely, but Dani can’t shake the feeling that there is some other reason.

The doorknob is ice-cold under her fingertips. The hinges groan softly as she begins to push it closed. Far back into the dark rooms, she hears a scrape. Something dragging against the wood floor, ever so briefly. On instinct she freezes, listening. The door hovers a few inches open and wavers in her trembling hand. Dani holds her breath for ten eternal seconds, eyes wide and straining against the dark. There is only the moan of the wind and rain outside.

Dani eases the door closed as softly as she can, clicking the handle into place. Before she can blink she is back in her bedroom latching the door shut. She shivers a moment, mouth dry and forehead pressed to the door, listening. There’s nothing.

She gets into bed, willing herself to believe she imagined the episode, and spends the night flinching at sounds from the storm outside. When sleep comes, it’s filled with fitful dreams.

\--

Dani brushes her teeth in the cavernous bathroom, hunkered against the chill. 6am. Shockingly early, but the battle for rest was lost hours ago.

There is a bathroom closer to her, but she always makes the walk to this one. It has just one tiny mirror, big enough to show her face and nothing beyond. She pulls her hair back and appraises her red-rimmed eyes. “Looking good, Clayton.”

She walks past Flora and Miles’ rooms, toward windows looking east to the parapet. The rising sun strikes the glass and Dani reels. A sudden flash of Eddie’s glowing glasses sears through her. She doubles over and pants, skin prickling with sweat. A hastily thrown up wall of resistance is no use, she hears the squeal of tires and sickening impact. Dani lets out a sob and hot tears blur her vision. She gathers herself slowly as the wave of nausea passes, willing herself to look at the harmless glass of the window. When she opens her eyes her heart nearly stops-Eddie. No…not Eddie, someone is standing on the parapet. The figure hovers for a moment, as if seeing her, and disappears over the edge.

Dani runs to the window and peers out. She sees no one. Jamie’s truck sits parked in the drive. She is sure it wasn’t Jamie. There’s no ladder, nothing to explain how someone got up that high. She heads for her room to get dressed, eager to be somewhere she’s not alone.

\--

“I saw someone on the parapet,” Dani chances during a break in conversation. “Was there someone on the grounds, maybe a maintenance person?”

There are a round exchange of glances that make Dani feel even more insane than when she was startled at the window. The gardener looks mildly insulted. Owen clears his throat.

“No, no one here. On the parapet? Are you sure?”

“I’m sure, I saw them early this morning.”

Jamie sets her teacup down too hard. “We get ramblers sometimes, they take liberties in the gardens. But if one made it up onto the parapet…”

Hannah makes a noise of disbelief. “But how could someone get up there? They’d have to go through the east wing.” 

Everyone looks at Miles and Flora in unison. They share a glance that says they are frightened, but Dani believes them when they deny involvement. Hannah flashes a diffident smile. “You must have imagined it, dear.”

Dani looks down at her plate and feels the door close on the conversation. It sounds absurd, now that she’s said it out loud. But she sees the figure still, silhouetted in the rain-blurred window. A tickle of embarrassment runs up her spine as she listens to Owen and the kids discuss the excitement of the storm. When she looks up, Jamie is watching her.

A sinking feeling settles in her gut. She knows in an instant that Jamie believes her. A shimmer of fear passes between them.

\--

Dani can’t quite believe she’s getting up to make tea. The stuff has grown on her this last month at Bly, and there is a bonus to making it after hours: no one to judge the ample amount of sugar she prefers.

She strikes a match over the hiss of gas and watches blue flames dance under the cast iron kettle.

“Enough for two?” Dani jumps and squeaks as Hannah materializes in the doorway. Hannah holds up apologetic hands. “Sorry, didn’t mean to cause a fright.”

“I’m-I’m fine,” Dani breathes. “Yeah, there’s enough. But I’ll let you make it.”

“Are you sure?”

Dani smiles. “No offense taken.” Hannah returns the smile and walks to get the teacups. Her nails are painted a deep red, buffed and rounded with such perfection that Dani could swear it was done by a manicurist…if there were any within 50 miles of Bly. The cups touch the counter with hardly a sound. Hannah doesn’t move; she glides, the shave-headed empress of some other realm. Dani takes in her outfit, a bright purple sweater banded with a gold belt and black slacks, a gold crucifix, effortlessly elegant. And out of place.

“Long day,” Hannah says, pouring the steaming water.

“Mm.” Dani fiddles with a loose string on her sleeve, her curiosity getting the better of her. “Can I ask you something?”

Hannah looks up. “Of course, dear.”

“Why are you here?”

Hannah lets out an impressed laugh at her boldness. “Indeed, why am I here. Why are all of us here, tucked away in this dreary corner of the world. Before, I would have said it was because of Charlotte and Dominic.”

“Flora and Miles’ parents?”

Hannah presses her lips together. “They were just the sort that you didn’t want to let go, once you found them. Generous, thoughtful. I came to Bly before my husband…” Hannah is turning a small wedding band around her finger. “Well. My husband lived in the town. So I got a job. And when he left me, Charlotte offered me a place here.”

“I’m sorry,” Dani says.

“Yes, it was a sorry situation.” Hannah takes a slow sip of her tea. She leans forward and places her elbows on the counter. “And when the Wingraves died I expected I would leave. Thought they were all I had. But…” Hannah grins, her eyes far off. “The children had found a place in my heart. And Jamie, and then…”

“Owen,” Dani finishes, watching Hannah closely.

The smile fades on Hannah’s lips ever so slightly. Dani keeps her face bright, riding the swell of a friendship growing. Hannah chuckles and looks down, suddenly interested by a chip in the counter. “But what about you, Ms. Clayton? If you don’t mind me asking.”

She doesn’t say what Dani thinks she means: what made you flee across an entire ocean and isolate yourself in a 400-year-old mansion? No one has yet pointed to the elephant in the room, kind as they are. Dani wishes there was something stronger in her tea and sighs.

“I was engaged…and he died.” Dani winces against the simplicity of it. Coward. She takes a breath. “Before he died I, um, I broke it off. I don’t really have any family that wasn’t his. They don’t know, but…” I am the reason he’s dead.

“Dear,” Hannah whispers. She reaches out and puts her hand on top of Dani’s. The gesture is so unexpected Dani almost flinches. But Hannah’s warm, slender hand stays steady. Dani fights back tears threatening to spill. She considers blurting out the entire story to this soothing presence who seems ready to absorb any and all suffering. Someone who understands loss. Dani’s eyes stray to Hannah’s wedding band. In another breath the impulse passes, and she simply sits in warm gratitude. Hannah gives a squeeze and takes her hand way.

“It seems that most people who come to Bly bring some tragedy with them. Don’t feel alone.”

Dani smiles. “I don’t feel alone,” she says. For the first time, she believes it.

She finishes her tea after a welcome change of subject, joking about the kids’ antics of the week. Dani sighs, feeling the hour turn. “I suppose it’s late,” says Hannah. She cleans up and follows her out into the foyer, where they will part ways-Dani upstairs, Hannah to her room on the ground floor.

“Night, Hannah. Thanks for the company.”

Hannah turns to her, hand on the door to her room, with a wide smile. “Dani, I just wanted to say how-”

Hannah goes completely still. There is a fraction of a second in which Dani wonders if some kind of medical emergency is happening. As she opens her mouth to speak, she realizes that Hannah’s gaze isn’t lost, it’s fixed on something behind her.

Dani whips around, stumbling backward into Hannah, who catches the backs of her arms and grips tight. The silhouette of a person stands in the window aside the entry, backlit by the driveway lamps. Dani’s mind races, wondering if the figure can see them.

Her voice is a panicked whisper. “Hannah, is that-”

“The door is locked. I’m calling the police.” Hannah is gone in a smooth run to the kitchen. Dani hears the phone dial whirring and Hannah’s voice murmuring urgently. The phone receiver clacks down and then the whirring of the dial starts again.

The shadow remains. Dani stands frozen, paralyzed by fear. Should she scream? Threaten? She doesn’t have time to decide. In an instant, the shadow is gone. She lets out a shaky breath that ends in a sob. Relief and stinging failure wash over her. Will she ever be free of these terrors? All at once she is sick of it: haunted by the visions of Eddie, and now this.

Fear pumps through Dani’s veins alongside a new sensation-rage. She pictures Miles and Flora asleep in their beds. What kind of pervert stalks kids? And why is she standing there like a helpless idiot, waiting for the calvary? This is her school. Her home. Dani looks around for a weapon and pulls a fire poker from its stand with a clang. She tests the weight of it and tightens her grip. 

Dani has built a life here, in this creepy old manor. And she won’t have that taken by anyone.

She flings open the front door, half expecting to be torn apart by wolves the minute she sets foot outside. There is nothing but the quiet of the night. A thick mist hovers over the lake, shrouding the surroundings. Not even a cricket stirs in the gloom. Dani’s breath crystallizes as white clouds in the biting air.

A stick cracks toward the woods at the edge of the gardens. Dani makes a beeline for it, soft shoes muffling her steps. The red alarm of her fear is distant, overpowered by a surge of adrenaline and purpose.

She slows when she gets to the trees, listening. There is movement in the clearing just past a stand of birches that hide her approach. She can make out the dim form of a person just beyond them. Ten paces, maybe less.

Dani sets her jaw, tightens her grip, and breaks into a run.

\--

“Good Christ!” Jamie hisses, nearly falling backwards over a root. 

Dani lurches to an awkward stop, swinging the fire poker just wide enough to miss. The metal tip lands with a thwack in the dirt. She pants, pupils huge in the dark. “Jamie?”

“You about flogged me!”

“There’s a…” Dani begins, before seeing the short-barreled shotgun in Jamie’s hands.

“We heard. Owen’s at the house.” Jamie gestures behind her. “Parked on the road, hoping to surprise the bastard.” Dani’s eyes are still on the gun. “What?” Jamie shrugs, setting the stock back into her shoulder. “Shot plenty of rats with it. Happy to add Peter fucking Quint to the tally.”

“Who the fuck is Peter Quint?”

Jamie can’t help the second take. It’s the first time she’s heard Dani use that tone of voice. Definitely the first time she’s cursed. The blonde is barely recognizable, eyes ablaze, braving the dark alone with nothing but a fire poker. Jamie admits, she’s impressed.

“I’ll explain after we cut the bastard down.” Dani nods once and falls in behind her. Jamie scans the darkness. She knows every corner of this property. Any fleeing miscreant would be moving south toward the road. She leads the way, scanning for footprints. Jaime’s boots make deep tracks in the dirt, still soft from yesterday’s rain. She grunts. There’s no sign of anyone. An animal calls far off, startling Dani. Jamie feels a hand instinctively grab her jacket. She looks over her shoulder and flashes a quick smile. “Easy, Poppins.” Dani lets go and nods. She’s shivering, wearing a thin sweater and slippers. It won’t be long before she gets dangerously cold.

“He’s probably gone by now,” Jamie says, her voice still low, “and the police’ll be here soon.”

Dani nods again, arms crossed and teeth chattering. They make their way through the mist back to the house. Twice Dani stumbles and Jamie reaches out to catch her, but Dani holds up a trembling hand and says “I’m-m alright.” 

They reach the house and Jamie calls to be let in. The door swings open with a bang. Owen peers out, holding a cast iron pan and looking meaner than Jamie thought possible. He softens in relief. “Oh, it’s you.”

“What, you think the stalker brought a scrawny lass from Leicester with him?”

Hannah wraps Dani in a blanket and Owen hands her a steaming mug that smells of ginger. His face is hard and Jamie knows what runs through his mind. There is a crackle of car tires in the drive. Jamie stashes the shotgun in a broom closet.

The sergeant arrives, walks the grounds, and is the picture of nonchalance. “Why would he come back? He’d be caught.” No one answers him. He makes another obligatory sweep before setting off down the road. Jamie closes the door, mumbling that he couldn’t catch a one-legged chicken. Exhaustion settles over the four of them. Jamie follows Owen to the kitchen table, where Dani appears to have finally gotten warm. Hannah watches the last of the steam rise from her untouched tea in the silence.

When Dani speaks, she doesn’t lift her gaze. “Who is…what happened to Rebecca Jessel?”

Owen sighs with the weight of this inevitable moment. “She was our Au Pair, before you.”

Jamie sees Dani swallow. “Miles tried to give me her hair pin, when I started.”

“The children were very fond of her…and her, them. She…well, we were all fond of her. She worked for a year.”

Hannah’s voice is sharp. “And then Peter Quint happened.”

Jamie fights the urge to throw something. Owen looks as though he’s tasted sour milk. “One of Henry’s protégés,” he continues. “He got Rebecca under his spell. Hannah heard them talking late one night. He convinced her they were going to run away together.”

When Jamie takes over, Dani looks up at her. “Smart woman, Rebecca, but not about Peter. He wound her tight ‘round his finger, then disappeared for a few weeks, come back just once. Then gone again. Rebecca went mad with it. One morning I come out to start work, and…” she clears her throat at the memory. “I find Flora standing at the lake, staring. And there’s Rebecca, in the water.”

Dani’s eyes widen. Jamie makes a dismissive motion. It’s not what you think. “She’s just standin’ there, for God knows how long, waist deep. And I remember, you know, from tellin’ stories and carrying on, Rebecca can’t swim. So I call her name, but she doesn’t move an inch. Took Flora inside, waded out there.” Dani’s eyes grow soft with sympathy and Jamie has to look away. “She just standing there, blank. No expression on her face. And she has these marks,” Jamie motions to her neck. “Bruises, like she been throttled.”

“They took her to mental hospital,” Owen says quietly. “We haven’t seen her since.”

“Jesus Christ,” Dani mumbles, rubbing her face. Jamie wonders if she would have taken the job if she’d been told a half-murderous paralegal had driven the last nanny mad. “And Quint?”

“Gone,” says Hannah. “With ten thousand quid worth of jewelry.”

Dani looks at Jamie again. “Why would he come back here?”

Jamie shrugs. “Money, maybe. Always more to steal. But more likely he’s come for Rebecca, doesn’t know she’s gone.” 

Jamie waits for Dani to get up, announce she’s quit. Instead she says, “Got any other guns in this house?”

\--

Jamie settles on the couch in front of a dying fire, the shotgun propped on an ottoman beside her. She pulls her jacket tight against the chill. No chance of sleep after a night like this. Dani’s voice comes from the doorway.

“I…thought you could use this.” She has the neatly folded wool blanket she was wearing earlier. She takes a few steps and offers it with an outstretched arm. Blushing, Jamie thinks, but it could just be the firelight.

“Right thoughtful of ya. Thanks, Poppins.” Jamie takes it and makes a show of throwing the blanket over herself, sighing contentedly. Dani narrows her eyes for a second, like she knows she’s being played, but the suspicion dissolves into exhaustion.

“Will you be alright down here?” Dani casts a worried glance toward the windows, eyes bleary. Half of her hair escapes from a pony tail. She looks utterly spent. And somehow, Jamie notes with a twitch of irritation, still beautiful. She scratches her nose and buries the thought. 

“Sure. Owen’s here, and I’ve got the ears of a dog.” She juts a thumb at the shotgun. “Anyone tries to break in here, they’ll get a mug full of lead.”

“Alright,” Dani hesitates, seems to think better of it. “G’night.”

Jamie watches her leave and settles in to the slow burn of her fury. If Peter Quint comes round here, she thinks, I’ll aim lower. Jamie would do worse for Flora and Miles, Owen and Hannah. She idly works the wool blanket between her fingers. Someone new to add to that list. As the minutes pass she tries hard to think of Peter Quint, of the threat lurking outside. But her mind wanders to other places: the first time Dani levels her eyes at Jamie with a purpose, and how she had been struck by their shade: clear water with an edge of cobalt. Dani singing to herself in the gardens (a disquietingly good rendition of Fly on the Windscreen). Laughing over dinner with Hannah and Owen. Her hand on Jamie’s jacket tonight. And…was it possible, had she caught Dani watching her at odd moments? Jamie snorts to herself. Stupid thinking, the kind that destroys a perfectly boring life, a life she’d worked hard to procure. Impossible, anyway. The Au Pair was just scared. 

Jamie turns onto her back and puts it out of her mind.

\--

Dani sits up, despite a throbbing headache. It’s not yet light. She hears a fleeting tea kettle whistle in the kitchen, and throws on a coat. Warily, she pulls back the sheet from a corner of the mirror to check her reflection. She looks like hell and makes a half attempt to fix her hair.

Jamie raises an eyebrow as she downs the last of a scone in the kitchen. “You’re up early.”

Dani shrugs, and realizes with a little buzz of embarrassment how odd it looks to run down to the kitchen at 5am without an obvious purpose. Dani makes a show of preparing coffee. “You going home?” 

Jamie brushes her hands on her brown work jacket. “Not usually too keen on the overtime.”

The awkward moment stretches until Dani considers banging her head against the counter. She offers Jamie coffee with a gesture to the pot.

“None for me. You Americans keep the bitter stuff.” Jamie clears her throat and mimes tipping a hat. “Well, I’m off. Owen’s staying a bit, and I’m just a call away if anything happens.” She turns and walks to the foyer. Dani listens to the door close and grips the counter. The moment is all wrong. She’s let it slip like so many, failed to act when she had the chance.

“Hold on,” she calls, half jogging outside as Jamie opens the truck door.

A silver thread of light shows on the horizon. Somewhere far off, a bird begins its waking song. There is something different about this morning, Dani knows. Fearful whispers that would normally stop her are silent, bound in something left behind the night she went charging into the dark woods.

Jamie’s emerald eyes sparkle with curiosity. The air between them changes shape. Dani steels herself and takes Jamie’s hand. It’s rough with work and heavier than she expected. The warmth of Jamie’s skin sends a wave of heat up Dani’s arm, little electric pulses coursing through her spine. She squeezes. “Thank you for staying.” 

Jamie laughs quietly, speechless for a rare moment. Dani thinks she looks like someone who lost a sure bet but is inexplicably relieved. “Who the hell knew?” she whispers. She squeezes Dani’s hand in return and hesitates, like she’s making sure the moment is real. With another chuckle she leans back and breaks the contact. Jamie looks over her shoulder, smiling as she gets into the truck. “See you, Poppins.”

Dani stands for a long time in the growing sunrise. On the edge of joy she feels old injuries lurking, shame pressing in. But she takes a deep breath, looking at the woods beyond the lake, and the shadows pass unwelcomed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, Dani is a Depeche Mode fan (duhhhh!). Give their album "Black Celebration" a listen if you'd like an eerily fitting soundtrack to the story.


	3. Chapter 3

Dani brings her tea Monday morning. She wears her best clothes, brushes her hair, and decides not to care one bit about how obvious she’s being. 

Jamie seems almost annoyed. “Wayhaught Poppins, you flirt.” But Dani notices she’s looking a little more put together herself-the normal galoshes and thick work pants are gone. Jamie wears black Doc Martens and acid wash jeans just tight enough to make Dani’s head swim.

Jamie grimaces from the sip of tea and Dani winces apologetically. Privately, she feels not an ounce of remorse.

Jamie moves the shears delicately between flower stalks, each one falling into an outstretched palm with a whisper of sharp blades. Dani is transfixed. Jamie is slight, lithe, and yet there is nothing fragile about her.

“How do you know which leaves to take?”

She smiles and half shrugs, not looking up from her work. “You just learn. After a while you get a sense of which aren’t to make it.” Another stalk falls into her hand, and Dani can see some subtle difference in its color, a wilt the others don’t have. “Isn’t taking so much as giving. A plant is connected to everything around it. Needs the soil, the sun, fresh air. And it needs to lose some of itself from time to time. Plants get eaten. They plan for it.” The shears close with another sshk. “Some make pitch or thorns to ward it off, but most just share themselves. If you’re careful, each time you take a leaf, makes the others brighter.”

A weight shifts in Dani’s being, made warm by the movements of the gardener’s careful hands. Years pass before her mind’s eye, highlight reels of choicelessness and shame. What the hell had she been thinking saying yes to Eddie? She’d been saying yes for so long, acquiescing felt like the only and inevitable choice. An endless stream of giving. Giving herself away, giving in. Perhaps if she gave everything, there would be nothing left inside to fear. Something evil tucked away, ignored and forgotten.

But denial builds fragile walls. Cracks had already formed by the time she stood before a mirror, locking eyes with the woman in the dress shop. A complete stranger who brushed away a lifetime of resistance with a subtle touch and lingering gaze. All that effort to disappear, decades of gritted teeth and avoided glances, destroyed by a casual flirt. And there she was surrounded by the very people who had known Dani her entire life, who claimed to know exactly what her future should hold, completely oblivious to the catastrophic awakening taking place. She could have wept, but it struck her instead as terribly hilarious. 

She expected it to pass: this urge to laugh. But each morning she woke the impulse remained. It grew in strength each day, a vibrating force of uncontrollable mirth. She giggled at dinner with Judy. She laughed at her mother, half drunk and peering at Dani across a room. What’s so funny, Danielle? She laughed at herself in the mirror most of all. That’s it? She thought. That’s all this was the whole time? She tried to think of sad things, to cover her mouth with a hand, but it was no use. She found herself in moments alone doubled over, laughing until she gasped and wiped tears from her eyes.

And then a miraculous thing happened; it began as a whisper after her laughing fits, something sweet and foreign and insistent. Dani began to say no.

No to leaving a job she loved. No to lunches with the family. She took herself to new places and sat alone with her coffee. Eddie stood baffled as she grabbed the car keys from him, suddenly unwilling to be driven by anyone. Each little refusal cut the puppet strings holding her until she was drunk with the power of it. Still, no one seemed to notice that Dani Clayton had decided to exist.

Eventually, the strings ran out: was only one more no to be said. She’d gone to dinner with Eddie that night facing it as one faces a risky but necessary operation to remove a growth. Even with a hundred small rebellions under her belt, this one last time of putting herself first took a sheer force of will. One last moment of courage.

She’d said it. With that last tie cut, the laughter ended. There were only tears, her heart breaking over wasted time. Her own prime, twelve years an adult – and Eddie’s. Eddie’s devotion, his plans and his dreams. She could have saved them both. The only choice she could have made in a life full of bad luck, and she’d spent twelve years a coward.

There would never be a chance to explain any of it. Her attempt at freedom had ended with black words of hatred. Eddie, swept away under the screech of tires. Still in her mind the sound seemed to go on and on, the strobe of his glasses in the headlights, a sickening crack. Eddie on the ground. His last breath, a bloody gurgle. There were other flashes in the fog: her own screaming, a nurse with a syringe muttering words of calm, the sting of the needle in her shoulder. A liquid blackness coming over her. 

Dani flinches. Jamie is watching, shears resting on the bench. How long had she been tucked away? Dani quickly wipes the tears from her eyes. She’s let the graceful morning go to waste. Just another mistake.

Jamie’s voice is soft. “Alright, Poppins?”

Dani thinks of excuses, dismissals. Perhaps she would run to them outside of this place, but the greenhouse is so full of light, any lie wouldn’t survive. She looks at the severed flower stalks. “It isn’t like that with people, is it?” She swallows. “People take and it doesn’t make anything brighter.”

Jamie doesn’t speak for a long moment, and Dani wonders with a sick feeling if she’s let too much slip, if she’s ruined the delicate beauty of her time alone with the gardener.

Jamie’s eyes are heavy with sadness, and something else she can’t identify. “Aye. Most people. But…some people are worth it.” Her voice is barely a whisper, as if she has to overcome some great obstacle to speak. “Some we give to, and they make us grow.”

A nameless possibility shines on the horizon. It rises with Dani’s smile that presses a tear from her eye, a tear she acutely wishes Jamie would reach over and brush away. But Jamie doesn’t move, and the distance between them remains. 

Dani hears Flora’s reedy voice in the distance. “Daniiiii! Come for breakfast!”

“God,” she mutters, looking at her watch, wiping the tear from her cheek. “What time is it?”

Jamie brushes off her hands and smiles. “Time for breakfast.”

\--

Tuesday, and Dani is startled to wake and find the kitchen dark. Hannah wears a gray jacket. She looks older and twirls a cup slowly on the table. “His mother,” she says, eyes far off. “This may be it.”

Dani cobbles together a breakfast. The kids enact a squealing swordfight with sticks in the kitchen, oblivious to any tension hanging in the air. Dani is relieved when they celebrate as though peanut butter toast is an exotic delicacy. She keeps the lessons short and sends them out in hats and mittens to the lawn.

Jamie appears along the stone path with a shovel slung over one shoulder. Dani keeps the kids in sight and walks over to her, conscious of the closing space between them.

“How is he?”

Jaime shakes her head, chopping at a bit of grass between pavers with the blade of the shovel. “Offered to help, but there’s nothing to be done now.” Dani knows Owen’s mother has been ill for a long time, noticed he’d been leaving sooner than usual the last few weeks.

“Why is she…”

“Dementia.” Jamie bends down and tugs the grass out with gloved hands. “She don’t even recognize him anymore, her own son.”

Dani’s heart breaks for Owen, Bly’s ray of sunshine. Would she ever have known? She thinks of his wiggling mustache, the wonderful meals and terrible puns. That someone could be enduring such pain so generously. Dani resolves to carry her own with more grace. They stand a moment in silence, watching the kids prowling around a hedge.

Jaime gives her a sly look. “Heard you made breakfast this morning.”

Dani crosses her arms. “Hey. I am a much better cook than a tea…maker.”

“Is that right?”

“Yep, I’ll prove it to you.” Dani points to the house. “Lunch, 12:30.”

“Sure you won’t be just heatin’ Owen’s leftovers?”

Dani suppresses an urge to give a playful push to Jaime’s shoulder too late. The thought of closing the distance between them makes her face flush hot. She turns and walks towards Miles and Flora, purposefully avoiding Jamie’s knowing smirk. “12:30. Be there or be square.”

\--

Dani is relieved to find a hodgepodge of ingredients befitting a stir-fry, and sets the children to work. She shows Miles the angle of the knife against each vegetable, how large to chop and how to avoid cutting himself. The excitement on his face at being given this adult task is ample reward. Flora sulks and puts a hand on her hip. “Why can’t I chop things?”

Dani squats down at her level and plants a kiss on her forehead. “Too young, sweet pea. But I have a job for you.” She hands the little one a peeler and carrots, and sulking rapidly becomes critical focus on this important task. 

Jamie elbows Hannah at the table. “Get this. She’s makin’ them do hard labor.”

“I like hard labor!” Flora cries.

Dani makes eye contact with Jamie as they all laugh. Jamie holds the gaze, her expression sharp. Her green eyes flit down for an instant to Dani’s collarbones, and a thrill makes Dani nearly drop what she’s holding.

The phone rings. Hannah rises swiftly and answers. Her shoulders collapse a little, and she murmurs condolences into the phone. The room goes heavy, all joy evaporating.

“What is it?” Flora asks, carrots forgotten on the counter.

Jamie kneels down to Flora’s level, her voice rough. “Owen’s mummy died, love.”

“Oh,” Miles says quietly. “I know what that’s like.”

Dani turns to him, speechless for a moment. She holds her arms out. He steps into her hug and she pulls Flora in, too. She holds them tight, long after Jamie and Hannah have left in the truck.


	4. Chapter 4

Jamie doesn’t think Dani will make it to the funeral, at first. She seems a wreck, squeezing into a black dress that Jamie thinks with snicker might be the scandal of sleepy little Bly for years to come. But there’s also a determination in her eyes when Jamie offers her a way out. “Owen’s my friend,” Dani says. “Funerals are…well, not really my best. But I’ll be fine. Anyway, the babysitter’s already here.” She considers the dress with a huff. “How do I look?”

“You look, eh…” Jamie shrugs, hands in her pockets. “Ready.”

“It’s all I have in black,” she says with a resigned sigh. “Help me with this.” She turns and brushes her hair away, exposing the soft lines of her upper back. Jaime swallows. Blimey. She pulls the zipper up and steps away quickly. Jamie could swear she sees a smile tug at the corner of Dani’s mouth as she grabs her bag.

“Not fond of looking yourself over?”

Dani looks up. “Hmm?”

Jamie gestures quizzically the antique mirror above the dresser, covered in a sheet. 

Dani regards it grimly. “Trust me, that’s the last thing I need today.”

\--

The funeral comes and goes as funerals do: slow and somber. Jamie isn’t yet familiar with wakes; folks in her life disappear rather than die. But she can tell immediately that Dani has attended one too many. Jamie speaks a few soft words to Owen’s brothers. She finds Dani in a corner clutching her purse, stiff as a board.

“Need some air, Poppins?”

Dani lets out a breath she seems to be holding. “God, yes.” They make their way to the back of the church. A weathered wooden door leads to a small graveyard. They huddle in a spot of sun near headstones worn by centuries of rain. A few old people linger that Jamie doesn’t recognize; she tips her head to them respectfully and pulls out a pack.

“Can I bum one?” Dani asks, looking tired.

Jamie grins. “You’re full of surprises.”

Dani gestures whatever and leans forward so Jamie can light her cigarette. “Gave it up when I started teaching.”

Jamie shields the flame from the breeze with a cupped hand. A lock of Dani’s hair tickles the back of her hand. This close she can’t help but take in the curve of her lips, the almost imperceptible hair at the bend of her jaw, the clear blue irises that give way to a darker hue at their edge. The tobacco catches and Jamie leans back, squinting at Dani in the sun. “So…” she punctuates with an exhale of smoke. “Why’s it you’re looking like this is your funeral?”

Dani laughs and coughs. She looks out on the gravestones and takes a pensive drag before answering. “My dad died, when I was ten.”

Jamie deflates. “Oh, shit.”

Dani waves a hand. “Its ok. I mean it isn’t, it wasn’t. Funny thing is, him dying wasn’t the worst part. The worst part was everyone giving up afterward.”

Her face remains impassive. A spike of discomfort makes Jamie shift on her feet. She wonders how she ever thought Dani was soft. “I never saw my grandparents after that. Guess my dad being gone was all it took for them to disappear. And my mom…she disappeared into a bottle.” Dani chuckles dryly. “Her idea of maternal instinct was to force me to follow every cliché expectation anyone set out for me. She made sure to recite the list before getting shit-faced every night.” Dani changes her voice and Jamie chuckles, having no trouble picturing it: “Danielle, you’d better get perfect grades or no one will respect you. Danielle, you’d better say yes when Eddie asks you to prom. You shouldn’t be a teacher, Danielle. No one like a working girl. When Eddie pops the question, you’d better put his ring on your finger.” 

A kerosene fire ignites in Jamie’s gut. “You were married?”

Dani flicks the cigarette. “Engaged.”

Jamie looks down at her boots, for once not caked with mud. “Past tense?”

“Mm. That would be the other reason I can’t stand funerals.”

“Fuck,” Jamie breathes, shaking her head. “Poppins, I’m so sorry.”

Dani pinches the ember out of her cigarette, crushes it in the grass beneath her shoe. Jamie sees the distant blue of her eyes taking in the gravestones. The solid weight of grief, a haze of guilt. “Thanks. I feel better now, after telling you.”

Jamie doesn’t know what to say to that. She stubs out her own cigarette and motions to the door. “We’d better get back. Promise I won’t make you take an open viewing.”

Dani laughs. “Not unless vomiting on the deceased is an English tradition.”

\--

Owen says two words to Jamie on the way out, his eyes raw with sorrow. “Bonfire. Wine.”

Jamie spends the remainder of the afternoon chopping enough wood to burn Parliament. She hauls stones to the grassy carpet of her favorite clearing, where she notices a few tulip bulbs have sprouted from the ground. The air is crisp and clear, the scent of spring perfumes the wind when it crosses the grounds just right.

A few scrapes of the spade lay bare the black earth, which she rings with smooth stones stacked two high. A full barrow of wood, kindling shaved with a sharp knife, and the work is nearly done. Bly Manor is quiet without the children, taken to town for a movie and ice cream. Jamie wonders how Dani’s getting on when she appears, canvas bags under her arm.

“I think these are camping chairs. Found them in the cellar.”

“Cheers to you for bravin’ the cellar, Poppins.”

“Yeah,” Dani makes a face. “It’s really fucking creepy down there.”

Jamie gestures in a half circle. “All the dolls. Positively a fuckin’ nightmare.”

They laugh and unbag the chairs, which are two singles and one folding loveseat. A little moth-eaten and rusted, but sturdy. Jamie finds an old wooden wire spool as a table, and Dani covers it with a gingham cloth.

Jamie tsks. “Be a lovely picnic, if his mum wasn’t dead.”

“Do you think it’s all grief, or a little relief?”

“More like the other way round. Owen’s mom’s been gone a long time. Just her body died is all.”

Dani chews her bottom lip, contemplating the setting sun. “What else do we need?”

Jamie shoots her a serious look. “Owen’s a pit. Bring all the wine you can find.”

\--

The car pulls in just after the sun dips below the horizon. Hannah walks Owen slowly to the door with her arm around his shoulders. Dani wonders what words she’s whispered in his ear, what sorts of things unspoken love can and cannot say.

Owen surprises her by immediately pulling her into a hug. “Oh,” he says, in a half sob. “Thank you for feeding the little ones while I’ve been away.”

“It wasn’t your magic,” Dani says, holding him tight. “They’ll be glad to have you back when you’re ready.” 

Despite the sorrow, Dani’s heart sings with relief at the four of them being together again. Bly Manor had been dark and lonely the past day, like a living machine gone dormant with one of its pieces missing.

“Right,” says Jamie. “Let’s go. Got a fire built big enough to singe your mustache, mate.”

The gardener makes good on her promise – technically all the wood’s been split, but the outer wall of the lean-to stack is made of logs thick enough to still count as trees. Dani watches Jamie hand Owen a match, her expression soft. He strikes it with ritual precision and kneels. Dani feels the ground hallow, the space between the four of them takes on a sacred air. A flame curls up the wood, catching with surprising speed. There is a scramble to move chairs back as the pyre alights in a popping blast of heat. Dani takes the opportunity to slide hers closer to Jamie. Jamie casts a sly smile her way and settles in without objection.

Owen pulls the cork from his wine with a pop and gestures to Dani. “Suppose someone should explain to the new hire what it is we’re doing.”

Hannah nods toward the fire. “It started after the Wingraves passed. We gathered out here to mourn them. In the old days, people burned their dead. Now we remember them with it. We put our regrets to the flame. We had one for Charlotte and Dominic, and one for Rebecca.”

Dani listens to the crack and sizzle of the fire, sipping from a bottle she couldn’t possibly afford outside these grounds. Hannah disappeared after arriving, producing a crate from some corner of the house lost to all memory but hers. I’m sure Henry won’t mind, she’d said with an edge to her voice. We’ll take it in lieu of his presence today.

“Alright,” Owen says. “I’ll start.” He plucks a leaf from the ground and tosses it in the fire, where it sizzles before bursting into flame. “For my mum.” He sighs. “She was a great mum. A good friend. They said all that today.” A tear trails down his cheek and disappears into his mustache. “They didn’t say how funny she was. She was so goddamn funny. She’d have us all in stitches every day, and you could hear her from two houses down. A great booming laugh. Used to make me embarrassed as a kid. What I’d give to hear it now.” He sniffs and takes another pull from the bottle. “ You know, every day she thought I was someone different. And it was horrible, and lonely. But it was also…so tender. She’d talk to me, like I was her brother, or her nan. And I learned all sorts of things I never would have known.” He whacks the chair arm softly with a fist. “No one acknowledged how she was, at the end. So completely helpless. She didn’t know who she was anymore. She would scream and try to hit me.” 

Dani thinks of her own mother, drunk and yelling at her from the floor. You don’t even know what you have with Eddie. Dodging a thrown bottle, having to sweep up the mess. Perhaps dementia comes in voluntary forms. What would Owen do now that he was out from under the burden of caring for his mother? What would she do? “I’m so sad, but so fucking relieved she’s gone. That’s what I throw in. The guilt about that.” Hannah rubs circles around his back while he chokes a little and rubs his eyes. “She was a good mum. I miss her.” He clears his throat and pats Hannah’s leg. “Right, your turn.”

Hannah takes a deep breath. Please God, let her throw that wedding ring in. But Dani doesn’t have to wish; she realizes with a start that Hannah’s ring finger is bare. Dani surpresses a smile. Perhaps not a secret love, after all.

Hannah tosses the cork into the coals. “For Rebecca. I regret…I have been regretting that such a vibrant young woman was stolen from us. That I couldn’t do more to turn her around, make her look the other way. Toward the light.” 

Dani feels a pang of empathy for her predecessor, another woman reduced to a posession in pursuit of love. Someone who gave her all and was left empty. Dani looks up at the blanket of stars expanding above them. Her eyes follow the embers rising like fireflies before disappearing into the blackness. Owen and Hannah hold hands, patiently watching the flames.

Jamie doesn’t speak for a long while, a bottle of wine resting on the ground between her boots. Dani sees her jaw set, relax again. She leans over, pinches earth between her fingers and tosses it with a hiss into the flames. “For Charlotte and Dominic, who took a chance on a criminal. I regret that they didn’t live long enough to see my gratitude. I’d have liked to tell them. Like to have shown them.” Jamie picks up her bottle and settles back in her chair.

Crimes and sentences play through Dani’s mind, minor to severe and back again. She thinks – she knows – someone like Jamie comes from a desperate place. Somewhere where survival depends on a quick wit and a hard veneer. A place that eventually drove her here, to a lonely job far from any semblance of society. Dani wonders what’s beneath the teasing and the smirks, who the gardener might be when her guard is down. Watching Jamie’s hands grip the bottle, brown curls turn golden in the glow of the firelight, she intends to find out.

“Dani,” Hannah says. “Anything you’ve been itching to cast into the fire?”

Dani’s pulse starts in her temples. A prickle of sweat creeps up her back. It would take a bucket of dirt, she thinks, and an hour long list to cover all the regrets. But there is one thing. She stands abruptly and heads for the house. She sees Jamie move to follow her, but sit again at a motion from Hannah. Dani doesn’t bother closing the front door as she runs up the stairs. 

The glasses are where she left them, in the deepest recesses of her bag. They seem small in her hands, somehow undamaged after all this time.

One by one, memories tucked away trickle in. Eddie as a boy, all sweetness and adventure, a balm to Dani’s turbulent life. Crawling in the dirt with him, playing war. The inevitable metamorphosis of his friendship as they grew older into something tacky and inescapable as a glue trap. Dani watching her friends pair off so easily, so naturally, eventually arriving at the only conclusion there was: something is wrong with me. Judy pushing the glasses into her hands, as if shedding a curse. The ever-present need to run, run away, run to the ends of the earth. Go far enough that these feelings wither from distance, go where no one might know that she’d lived her life a coward and was a coward still.

Who could love her? Dani closes her eyes. Some part of her had been hoping to die on this journey. Board a doomed plane, step into a crosswalk without looking: the nameless victim of some unfortunate accident.

Then she’d answered an ad for the most unlikely of jobs, in the most unlikely of places. The memories followed, and the visions plague her still. But staring at herself in the reflection of Eddie’s glasses, Dani feels a fight awaken. Her lungs expand around an animal impulse, free and grateful as the wind: she wants to live. 

Some we give to, and they make us grow.

The fire casts the clearing in a molten light. Dani marches though the soft grass, the frames buckling inside her fist. She moves closer to the fire until the heat threatens to scorch through her jeans. A monster lies there, in the flashes of orange light. She sees Eddie turning before the end, lenses alight in the moment before death, and flings the glasses into the coals before she can change her mind. The lenses pop as they crack in the heat, fissures forming like spiderwebs before both dissolve into fragments. The gold frames twist and bend until their shape is unrecognizable. Dani finds her voice. “For…for Eddie. I’m sorry that I wasted your time. I’m sorry you died hating me, that you never got to experience anything else.” Dani takes a shaky breath in. “But…I’m not sorry for leaving. For telling the truth. For being free.”

She sits down heavily and takes a too-large swig of wine, drowning the flashbacks before they can take hold. Dani chances a look at Owen, hoping to God she hasn’t done something stupid on his night to grieve. But he’s grinning at her like a proud father with Hannah beside him, radiating love and acceptance.

It’s hard to look at Jamie, but she does. There’s no mirth or bravado, just heavy emotion in her soft eyes. Dani’s skin aches with an overwhelming need to crawl inside the gardener’s jacket. Jamie gives her a small smile and Dani wonders to God why there weren’t two loveseats in that basement.

After Owen’s on his second bottle, Dani senses he’s stopped caring about anything other than the woman in the seat next to him. He’s chattering on about France, the countryside cuisine and the patisseries of Paris. Hannah is blushing like a schoolgirl, looking more at home than Dani’s ever seen her.

She realizes Jamie is watching her. “Want to go for a walk?”

Dani’s heart pounds again for a decidedly better reason. “Sure.” She takes a blanket and they wave to the happy couple, who carry on with barely a pause.

\--

The greenhouse isn’t warm, but it’s warm enough for what she needs to do. There is a bench dimly lit by the half moon. A slight scent of rose. Hannah likes the climbing variety, so Jamie will plant them this year for her. The starts wait in small pots, enjoying their time in the peaceful environment. Soon they’ll be in the ground, where Jamie knows it’s much harder to flourish.

They sit, Dani moving the blanket over them. Jamie can’t quite look at her-it would ruin her focus. Dani always ruins her focus.

“Think they’ll finally do it, Hannah and Owen?” Dani covers her face at Jamie’s wiggling eyebrows. “Oh my God! You know what I mean. Get beyond…whatever it is they’ve been doing.”

Jamie sighs. “Hannah and Owen have been slow dancing a long time. She’s got her ghosts, Hannah. But Owen always was a patient one.”

Jamie can feel the warmth of Dani’s leg touching hers under the blanket. Dani takes a drink – Jamie knows she’s girding her confidence – and leans in to the contact.

“Dani…”

“What is it?” Dani’s searching blue eyes are silver in the dark. 

“I’ve gotta be honest with you,” Jamie stands abruptly; she won’t get the words out so close to her. “You should know. You should know before you…”

“Oh, it’s too late for that.” Dani’s grin takes the air out of Jamie’s lungs. She sets the bottle down and looks at her seriously. “But I want to hear what you need to say.”

“I’ve done things,” Jamie begins, looking at the rose starts. “Things’ve happened that make it hard to…to get close to people. My parents were never there. Not really. Dad down in the coal pits, where nothing grows, where there’s no light at all. Too busy drinking and hackin’ up that black stuff even when he was around. Mum left. We weren’t enough entertainment for her. So it was just me and Mickey.” Jamie draws little circles in the dust with her finger. “One day, eh, I was just fourteen or so. I got us some tea. Stolen it, actually. I was right proud of myself, bragged about it even to my little brother. Went to brew it, but I was fuckin’ young. Got distracted.” Jamie starts pacing, she can’t help the anger, still, after all these years. “I got fuckin’ distracted and I forgot about the water. And Mickey…he just wanted to help.” Dani stands, her brows knitted in concern, but doesn’t approach. Jamie winces against the roar of the water beginning somewhere far off.

“He’d broken a teacup somehow or another. I found it and was right pissed, we didn’t have nothin’ back then. So I went charging in to whip him. He was just trying to help.” Jamie’s voice cracks a little and she grips the workbench. “I got there right as he pulled the water on himself. He was just four. Four years old. He was screaming. Screaming and screaming. I didn’t know what to do but try to get the water off, but his skin was…” Dani winces and Jamie rubs her forehead, collecting herself. “They took him to hospital. He lost an eye. Least, that’s what they told me. I never saw him again. Child services took me away. Spent the next three years in foster care. Some good, some bad. I tried to find him once, when I ran off. But I never did.”

“Jamie,” Dani whispers, moving toward her, but stops when Jamie puts up a hand.

“I was just a kid. I understand that now. It wasn’t my fault. But other things were.” Jamie laughs bitterly. “I turned into a right little terror. Stealing, drinking. Getting away with it mostly. Till one night I was near my old neighborhood. Ran into someone I went to primary with. Almost a man then. Nasty little fucker, told me he’d seen my mum. Said she’d been selling herself for five shillings and he’d had a go.” Jamie takes a breath and leans back on the bench.

“I don’t weigh much, Poppins, but by then I’d had my fair share of scrapping. Don’t think he was ready for it. Caught him right across the nose, and down he went, and that should have been the last of it. But…I didn’t stop. I just kept hitting him. Even when he didn’t try to stop me anymore. Even when my own bones broke.” Dani gets a nauseated look. Jamie doesn’t stop. She needs to know what I am. “My own mates called the police on me. Lucky for me he survived, or I’d still be in.” 

Dani takes a deep breath. Jamie crosses her arms and looks away, letting her have her chance to leave. She’s certain of it, prepared for it. Dani is beautiful, educated, kind. Not some trash from the north of England. 

Dani’s voice is soft. “Why do you garden?”

Jamie blinks at the question, realizes she’s been balling her fists. She lets her fingers relax. One of the rose starts has a blossom, tiny and unopened, budding from its vine. Rosa sempervierens.

“Court ordered me to do counseling, while I was in. Oh, I hated it,” she chuckles at the memory. “My counselor had to ware me down. Little by little, and one day I found myself sleeping through the night. So…I say to myself, maybe there’s something to this after all. Once you’ve done your therapy they have programs for the inmates, hair styling, sewing, something to teach you a skill.” Dani smiles, probably picturing Jamie working in a hair salon. “And I just took to planting things. She brought me books…” Jamie winces. “Found out I wasn’t all that good at reading. But I learned, because I wanted to learn everything there was about the green things of the world. And there is so much to know. Amazing really, you see a plant and you think it’s this static thing. Like an object, almost not alive. But there’s a whole world in each one. The soil and the light become these moving, breathing things.” 

Jamie reaches out and touches the new flower bud gently with the tip of a finger. “But I always come back to the simplest bit. Plants live, and they die. They give something to the world, and then they pass on. That’s where the beauty lies, in them, in us. In the mortality of the thing.”

She doesn’t know exactly where these words come from, but she finds that once the door to truth is open, unexpected things tumble out. “I wanted you to know what – ”

Dani turns Jamie to face her, cups her face in both hands, and pulls her into a kiss. A wave of tension and resistance melt from Jamie’s body. Hope buried deep springs to life as her hands find Dani’s denim jacket. In the humid air of the greenhouse, Jamie feels her life turn. When they part for air she whispers, “Thank fuck.” Dani runs a thumb across Jamie’s cheek, smiling against her lips and kisses her again, deep and insistent. 

Dani tastes of wine. The smell of her, lilac mixed with smoke from the bonfire sends an ache of want through Jamie’s legs. She presses Dani against the workbench and kisses her neck, impossibly warm in the cold air. Dani exhales in a rush and clutches Jamie’s back. She lets out a little huff of frustration and threads her hands underneath the fabric of her jacket to bare skin. Jamie gasps at her frigid hands. Dani grins. “I’m not sorry,” she whispers.

“Me neither.” Jamie slips her hands up Dani’s shirt to her stomach, smirking at the little squeal. They kiss again, slowly savoring it. Then Dani presses in a little harder, with just enough tongue to make Jamie dizzy and sway against her. Dani’s hands move until her thumbs press into Jamie’s hipbones. 

“Poppins,” she mumbles.

“Mm?” Dani arches an eyebrow, clearly not intending to stop. Then she hears the car in the driveway, a door shutting, and children’s voices. She puts her forehead to Jamie’s. “Oh god, I have the worst luck.”

“And I’ve got the best luck,” Jamie murmurs back. She anchors herself in the heat radiating off Dani’s skin, the smell of her, the tingle in her lips; it would otherwise seem to good to be true. They rest for a moment, feeling the sway of the other. 

“Stay,” Dani breathes.

Jamie can’t, but she could stand to hear Dani say it like that again. “Owen needs a ride home. And probably a gallon of water.” Dani giggles and then pouts a little. 

“I can wait,” she grumbles, her eyes full of desire. Jamie touches her face, pale in the dim light of the moon. 

“Who the hell knew?” she whispers.


	5. Chapter 5

Dani eyes Miles and Flora, who appear nervous but not yet guilty. “Guys, I need to know what’s going on,” Dani says.

They share a confused look. “About what?” Flora says.

“Someone’s been going out. Hannah had to clean up quite the mess this morning.”

“What do you mean?” Flora peeps. Miles says nothing, and Dani levels her eyes at him.

“Muddy tracks, in and out of the house.” When there’s no answer, she makes her voice even firmer. “It wasn’t any of us. Now, I need to know who’s responsible. We keep that door locked for a reason. It’s…” Dani wavers, not wanting to completely terrify them. “It isn’t safe to go outside alone at night, you told me that yourself, Flora.”

Flora nods and looks down at her shoes. Miles, who is watching her, sighs. “It’s my fault, Ms. Clayton.” Dani raises her eyebrows at him and he plays with a stray thread on the hem of his shirt. “I went out last night.”

“What were you doing?”

“Hunting for frogs. They’re easier to get at night.”

“Hunting for frogs.”

He shrugs a little. “Yes.”

“Did you notice that the door was locked when you went out?”

“Yes, Ms. Clayton.”

“And did you lock it again when you came back inside?”

“No, Ms. Clayton.”

She squats down at his level, and puts both hands on his shoulders. “Miles. This is really serious. You absolutely, positively cannot go outside without an adult. Especially not at night. That door is locked for a reason.” He nods, and looks truly abashed. Dani relaxes a little – no harm done, thank God. “And…you owe Hannah an apology.”

\--

Dani spends the day supervising Miles’ punishment – wiping down every baseboard of Bly Manor’s bottom floor. Well, that’s the plan. Hannah caves after the foyer is done, and Dani adds window sills to the list so that he doesn’t get off too easy. “They used to run riots around her with Rebecca,” Hannah whispers with a glint in her eye. “Mud in the night at least twice a week. Glad to see them put in line, little devils.”

Miles stands sulking but prideful while Dani inspects his work. She gives him a curt nod. “Not a speck of dust. Now what do you have to say?”

“I’m very sorry, Hannah. T’won’t happen again.”

“Alright,” Dani says with finality. “Now, I believe your sister is reinforcing the main gate on the fort upstairs. I think she could use some help.”

Miles brightens and sprints up the stairs. Dani follows Hannah into the kitchen, where Owen is bent over a cutting board shredding scallions with mesmerizing precision. Hannah and Owen share a look, and Hannah props an elbow on the counter, taking on a causal air. “So, Dani…”

“Hmm?”

“You’ve been working hard. Why don’t you take the night off?” Hannah says, twirling a bracelet around her wrist. 

Dani narrows her eyes. “You two are up to something.”

“Yeah,” Owen joins, not so coolly. “We’ve got the kids. You look like you could use a night out.”

“A night out?” Dani says, incredulously. 

Hannah drops her chin. “Maybe you should go change. Freshen up a bit.”

“And where exactly would I be going?”

When Jaime’s voice sounds in the doorway, the earth sways beneath Dani’s feet. “To a boring little pub in Bly. Nothin’ fancy.”

Jaime is already dressed in a black collared shirt, grey jeans, and black boots. Dani’s never seen someone look so good in monochrome. Dani steps closer to her, dimly aware of Hannah and Owen rapidly finding other tasks to attend to. “Who’s going to drive once we’ve had a few?”

Jamie flashes that half-smile that always makes Dani forget whatever smooth thing she had planned to say. “Well, it just so happens that I live above that boring little pub. We could always stay there.”

\--

Dani faces a problem: she wants to get ready fast, but she also wants to look good. She changes at light speed into a few choice items – all of which Jamie has probably seen before, except the top, a black blouse with laces up the back. Not exactly appropriate teacher attire. All that’s left is a bit of makeup. She never wears much, always preferred a more natural look. But tonight is a special occasion. 

The mirror looms over the room, covered as if in mourning. Dani could peek under the corner of the sheet, as she always does. She stares at the fabric covering the frame, nerves on edge. She’s about to go on a date. A date with a very hot woman. There seems no better time to throw caution to the wind. The glasses glow in her mind, enveloped by coals that melt them into nothingness. “Fuck it,” she whispers, and yanks the sheet free.

Dani blinks at her reflection: the first time she’s seen herself completely in two years. And…it isn’t horrible. I’m still young, she thinks with relief. The crushing weight she’s carried hasn’t weathered her into old age, after all. This is what Jaime sees: someone still full of possibility. Someone alive.

The vision will return, she knows. One day when she’s worn out, when her reserves are low, the glasses will appear to haunt her again. Maybe that’s the way to live with ghosts, Dani thinks, looking at herself in the mirror. Stop fighting, stop running. Accept their presence, and maybe one day, invite them for tea.

\--

Hannah and Owen keep the teasing looks to a minimum, but Dani still enjoys Jamie’s blush on the way out. She strides out next to the gardener, tall in her boots. Hannah catches her eye and gives a wink.

They barely make it to the truck before Dani pins Jaime to the door with a kiss, getting a chuckle out of the gardener. “Couldn’t wait another second, could ya, Poppins?”

“Hell no,” Dani says, wrapping her arms around. “Not when you’re looking like that.”

“Like what?” Jamie whispers, brushing her lips across Dani’s. She puts just enough pressure with her hands so Dani can’t move, and runs her lips along her jaw to the bottom of her ear and down her neck. Dani’s breath catches and her knees turn to rubber at the feeling of Jamie’s breath on her skin. Jamie’s lips are heading for her collarbone and Dani is beginning to sweat when the gardener abruptly stands again with a twinkle in her eye, looking completely unflustered. “Ms. Clayton, can I get the door for ya?”

Dani grits her teeth, panting, reeling from a heat that is at once enraging and utterly addicting. “How kind of you,” she growls, stepping into the truck.

Jamie is a good driver, which soothes Dani’s not-yet-faded anxiety over right hand traffic. The truck rattles with age and smells comfortingly of soil. Dani pulls her jean jacket tight and savors every second of the drive, her first out of Bly Manor in far too long.

“This country is beautiful,” she says. The hills glow in the overcast light. She can see a faint purple hue of heather beginning to flower. Rain in the distance crowns the setting sun in silver shafts.

Jamie laughs. “You been up north?” Dani shakes her head. “Mum’s side was from Scotland. Once you see the Highlands, the rest is just vanilla custard.”

“Hmm. Well, home’s ok. But most of it isn’t like this.”

“Catch on. I’ve seen pictures of..Colo…Cola – ”

“Colorado?” Dani grins. “I’ve never been.”

“Really? You’re from…whaddya call it – ”

“Indiana.” Dani watches Jamie’s uncomprehending face, amused. “How long does it take to drive across the UK?”

Jamie purses her lips. “Cross the middle? Norwich to the Welsh coast, six hours or so.” She frowns at Dani’s giggle. “What?”

“Jamie, Colorado is three states away from Indiana.”

Jamie elbows her. “You’re having a laugh at my expense!”

“It takes three hours just to drive from my hometown to the border of Indiana. Going seventy.”

Jamie balks. “Wha….ten hours of driving just to cross one state?”

“Not quite. But Indiana is small in the scheme of things. The western states are huge. Colorado? Probably as big as all of the UK.” Dani can’t help but laugh – Jamie looks like she’s just been told the lunar landing never happened. “It isn’t your fault. You’re thinking of what you’ve seen on a map, but maps are big liars, especially world maps. If they made them to scale…”

Jamie slaps the dashboard. “I’ve been fucking swindled!”

Dani pats her knee. “There, there. It’s probably not a popular fact in a country that likes to think of itself as the center of the world.”

Jamie snorts. “Coming from an American! Blimey. How long does it take to drive across the US?”

“I don’t know. Probably something like two or three days of straight driving.”

They pass a roundabout. Dani sees houses; the landscape begins to look more like civilization.

“You ever want to go back?”

“To Indiana? Never.”

“America?”

Dani glances at Jamie. “That would depend.”  
\--  
Jamie is nervous when they round the corner to the pub. She wonders what she was thinking, bringing Dani here. Sure, Jamie likes it, but Jamie isn’t a drop-dead gorgeous foreigner who looks like she belongs on the silver screen. Above the pub hangs a sign: Bly Inn est.1801. God love them, they don’t appear to have changed since. 

Jamie’s nerves ease as she parks; Dani’s eyes are bright with curiosity. “You live here?”

“Sure, just snuggle up between the casks and brandy at night. Very cozy.” Dani rolls her eyes. Jamie gestures to the door. “Care for a pint?”

“In a minute,” Dani checks over her shoulder and the sidewalk in front of them, but there’s no one out save for a few cars idling by. She leans over the shifter and plants a kiss so soft on Jamie’s lips that time stands still. Dani’s perfume fills her senses. Jaime doesn’t need a drop of anything else to feel drunk. She reaches up and runs a hand through Dani’s hair, leaning into the kiss. Dani moans and grips Jamie’s thigh. The pace quickens, and Jamie is just beginning to lose herself in it when Dani abruptly sits back and smooths her shirt. “Ok, I’m ready.”

Jamie’s jaw drops. “Were you plannin’ that the whole time?”

“Spur of the moment thing.”

Jamie has her doubts. She holds the pub door open for Dani, who pulls off her jacket as she walks through, revealing a black blouse tied up the back like a corset. Jamie catches her throw a coy glance over her shoulder and wonders exactly what she’s gotten herself into.

The pub is empty, except for a man the end of the bar and old George, who grins and spreads his arms wide. “Jamie, darling. Who’s this you’ve brought with you?”

Jamie hops onto a bar stool. “George. This is Ms. Clayton, our very own Au Pair over at the manor.”

She reaches across the bar. “Dani, pleased to meet you.”

\--

“An American! You’re far from home.”

Dani likes George. He’s white-bearded and stern, but friendly. Better yet, he has an obvious affection for Jamie. Is there anyone who doesn’t? A few more people file into the pub and Jamie beckons her to a booth, mostly shielded from view.

Dani’s on her second beer. She could just sit here and listen to Jamie talk about anything in that accent: about plants, her plans for the south wall of the property, about George and Owen and Hannah. Every detail glows in technicolor: the space between the collar of Jamie’s shirt and her neck, the way auburn curls frame her jaw, the thrill of that half-smile when she catches Dani staring. Everything is warm and close, so close that Dani’s fingers keep finding their way to Jamie’s wrist, her hand gripping the sweating glass of beer. 

Jamie looks down at Dani’s lips, up again. “You’re gonna get us thrown out with that sort of thing, Poppins.” Dani knows it’s a joke, but she pulls her hand back an inch just the same. Jamie sighs. “Off for a moment. Don’t go anywhere.” She smiles over her shoulder as she leaves for the bathroom, and Dani holds her gaze, heady with the moment.

Jamie disappears around the corner and Dani’s eyes focus on what was behind her: the man at the bar. She flinches; he’s staring right at her. Dani smiles automatically. The stranger doesn’t return the courtesy. His eyes glitter like black coals, upper lip curling into a vulgar sneer. He slips a hand into his pocket and stands. Dani panics, wondering if he’s about to approach, but he pulls out a pack of cigarettes, never looking away from her, and heads for the front door.

Jamie returns with a bounce in her step. Her smile rapidly dissolves. “What’s happened?”

“It’s nothing.” Dani waves nonchalance, trying to act calm. “The guy that was here, at the bar. He just gave me a bit of a look.”

Jamie darkens. “What sort of look?”

“I don’t know, maybe he’s just in a bad mood. But…” she winces, “I think he was watching us.”

Jamie turns toward the bar. “Which one of ‘em?”

“He went out. It’s nothing.” Dani groans and puts her face in her hands, wishing she hadn’t said anything.

Jamie rubs her eyes in frustration. “Poppins, George would tare the arms off of any bloke that gave us trouble here. And that’s only if he got to them before I did.” Jaime looks up and Dani sees the emotion she first saw one morning in the greenhouse – at first unfamiliar, so clear now in the muted light of the pub: weariness borne from carrying a weight one didn’t ask to be handed. And anger.

The world darkens. Dani feels the shame of her naivety evaporating, the myth of reaching some final destination – a finish line after which life would be simple – no more than a child’s hope. Her realization that day in the dress shop had covered all complexities with its blinding singularity. The consequences of being out were just a cloud on the horizon: frightening, but far off. Dani never had to consider that sitting in a pub could be dangerous. That for Jamie, with her swagger and a style tilted masculine, just walking down the street could be dangerous. Dani grits her teeth. 

“Is it hard?” She doesn’t ask the full question; she never has to with Jamie.

“It isn’t easy, if that’s what you mean. This’ll happen. Worse, at times.” Jamie swallows. “I understand if that’s a…a dealbreaker for you.”

Dani blinks. She tries to imagine a universe in which there could exist a single dealbreaker for this night, and laughs. She takes Jamie’s hands, leans over and kisses her knuckles for all to see. “Fuck those assholes.”

Jaime bows her head, chuckling. She looks up, eyes full of wonder. “I don’t think there’ll ever be a day you don’t surprise me, Dani Clayton.”

Something happens in Dani at hearing her name from Jamie’s lips, something that changes the temperature of the air, makes sitting still an impossibility. She stands.

“Let’s get out of here.”

\--

The rain comes down in a mist outside. Everything glistens and drips under the orange glow of the streetlights. Stairs to Jamie’s apartment run up the side of the pub helter-skelter. Dani wipes rain from her brow, nerves tingling. Keys jangle from Jamie’s pocket and she opens the door.

The loft is one narrow, single room, with large rectangular skylights between exposed wooden beams. A tiny corner serves as a kitchen, with an antique double broiler gas range. Dani runs her hand along the cold porcelain of a claw-foot tub, nestled in a nook made of a short wall aside the kitchen. At the far end is the semblance of a four-poster bed made from scraps of lumber, draped with heavy fabric Dani guesses is on account of the skylights. The floor is plank pine worn by centuries of use. And everywhere, bursting from every corner, reaching out from containers, climbing up the walls, are plants: leaves and ferns, fat succulents and delicate vines, enormous jungle fronds and scrawny rescues, all reaching from their eclectic containers toward the rain-spattered skylights. The effect is lush and vibrant, the life-sized terrarium of a botanist’s fever dream.

She turns to Jamie, who waits humbly behind her. “It’s not really made for living comfortably, but it’s cheap. And…” she gestures to the skylights, “good for the plants.”

“Jamie.” Dani raises her eyebrows for emphasis. “This is amazing. It’s…God, it’s beautiful.”

Dani waits, the air heavy between them. She wants to savor every second alone with her. No one to interrupt, no one to see. Finally safe. She hears only her own soft breathing and the sound of the rain. Jamie steps forward. She reaches out and takes Dani’s hands, and rests her forehead against hers. Jamie brings one of her hands to Dani’s cheek. A strange emotion passes like a gust of wind. Dani has never felt the light touch of reverence. Its impact sends a shiver up her back. Jamie sways gently. Dani follows her as if in a dance.

“I want this to be what you need. We don’t have to do anything you’re not ready for.”

Dani almost laughs. There might not be anything she isn’t ready for, in this magical space, with the woman she’s been aching to be alone with for months. Yet the sentiment is beautiful. Has anyone ever asked her what she needed? Has she ever taken what she wanted?

“Touch me,” she whispers.

Jamie blows out a breath and steadies herself. Dani struggles to reconcile the fact that she makes Jamie Taylor nervous. Jamie’s hands slide slowly over Dani’s lower back. Waves of goosebumps follow where her fingers brush bare skin along the corset lacing. Dani’s heart pounds even and sure. She brushes a brown curl aside and looks into Jamie’s eyes. “Don’t hold back. I want this. I want you.”

Jamie nods, lips parted, untucking Dani’s blouse from her jeans. When the fabric comes free she kisses her with force. Jamie’s tongue teases and Dani whimpers, aching to speed up what they’re doing. But Jamie takes her time. Dani’s hands are shaking as she works the buttons loose on the collared shirt. Jamie kisses her slowly, walking step by step backward toward the bed.

The back of Dani’s legs bump into the bed. When Jamie sweeps her blouse off, Dani sees her pupils dilate. She takes off her bra with ritual veneration, as if Dani is something fragile and priceless.

Dani moves her hands as slow as possible, parting the black shirt from Jamie’s chest. She drags a thumb along her skin as she lets the shirt drop to the floor. Jamie’s eyes shut, breath heaving.

Dani runs a hand across Jamie’s bare chest, down her muscular stomach and hooks her fingers under the beltline of her pants, pulling her skin to skin against her. “You’re beautiful,” she breathes, kissing her ear. 

Jamie shudders and wraps her arms around her, her voice rough. “Never in my life have I seen anyone as stunning as you. I tried not to. Tried not to think it….think about how all I wanted was to get you here, like this.”

Dani’s want heightens to a painful throb. A switch flips and all slow intention is forgotten. She wrenches Jamie into her, making out with ferocity. They scramble with each other’s jeans and kick off shoes. Dani sits back onto the bed and pulls Jamie on top of her. They’re tangled together, Jamie’s hands in Dani’s hair, her nails in Jamie’s back. Dani feels a hip land between her legs and rocks into it, letting out a pained sigh. Jamie responds by quickening the pace, until Dani can’t take it anymore and pushes her off with a growl.

Jamie yanks her pants off in a rush and Dani does the same to hers. Jamie bites Dani’s lower lip, while her hand trails down Dani’s thigh, tormenting the place aching to burst. Dani arches her back, willing Jamie inside, but she plays with her a while longer, kissing her neck and chest. 

“Jaime,” Dani gasps, “please…”

Jaime’s eyes are dark with a predatory grin. She slides into Dani in a rush. Dani is so wet it’s nearly frictionless – she cries out and feels herself clamp down on Jamie’s fingers. Jamie hesitates until Dani rocks against her, and then thrusts in a rising crescendo.

What Jamie does with her teeth and her hands leaves Dani helpless to control the sounds coming out of her. All she can do is hold on as Jamie adds another finger and does something with her thumb that sends ripples of ecstasy across Dani’s body. Its nearly too much, and then a minute later not enough. Jamie senses it, deepening every thrust until Dani is muffling a scream into her shoulder and clutching her as tight as she can. They pant and sweat and both laugh with the joy of it. Jamie quickens what she’s doing with her thumb and Dani’s eyes roll back. 

The feeling takes her up, up – over everything, over a lifetime of darkness, and explodes in light. Her back arches and she comes with a cry. Jamie lets out a low moan of pleasure, holding fast and riding Dani through the waves. When the last shudder passes, Dani’s view gradually comes into focus. Jamie hovers over her, wide eyes filled with awe. Dani pulls her into a kiss, rocking gently against her, relishing the feeling of her inside for one more moment.

Jamie eases her hand out gently, inch by inch, until she is free. Dani shivers under a cascade of emotions. In the center of immense joy, something released spreads hot through her chest and floods her eyes with tears. She pulls Jamie in tight and buries her face in her hair.

“It’s alright,” Jamie whispers, touching trails along her back. “I feel it, too.”

Dani is surprised by the force of her tears. Jamie’s there to brush them away, smiling softly, kissing her gently, basking in the afterglow. “I’m sorry,” Dani says when it finally passes. “I don’t know where that came from.”

Jamie smooths her hair back, plants a kiss on her forehead. “I do.”


	6. Chapter 6

Jamie wakes to golden light streaming through the skylights – she’d fallen asleep without pulling the bed curtains down. She can’t remember the last time she slept so deeply. Silent, peaceful, dreamless. Dani is there, tangled around her, breathing softly. Jamie inhales the scent of lilacs and traces Dani’s features, completely relaxed in the innocence of sleep. 

Jamie sits up carefully and smooths the blankets around Dani’s shoulders. She rubs her face and catches a thrill of dizziness: her hands still smell of last night. She’s awake now.

She fills the kettle and sets out the food as quietly as she can. Dani doesn’t stir until the butter sizzles in the pan and the pancakes are rising. She sits up blinking, hair a mess, and pouts. “You have clothes on again.”

“Aye. Like to freeze me tits off in the morning in this place.” The kettle whistles and Jamie turns around to take it off the gas. She jumps when Dani wraps her arms around her from behind, breathing into the back of her ear. 

“Happy to warm you up.”

Jamie can’t quite remember what she was doing, feeling Dani’s breasts press against her back. She can’t do anything, in fact, but groan as Dani’s hands snake up her chest. “You’re doing a fine job of it,” she finally gets out. “But work’s calling. For both of us.”

Dani kisses the back of her neck and sighs. “You’re right.”

Jamie turns and holds her hands, looking down at Dani’s body and struggling not to lose her resolve. “Another morning.” She grins. “And there will be other mornings.”

\--

When Jamie kisses her goodbye that night in the driveway, Dani wonders how she’ll get through the weekend without dying of impatience. Jamie reluctantly broke the news on the drive in: she promised George she’d help him gut the bathroom at the Bly Inn weeks ago. Despite the ache between her legs, Dani refuses to be the reason Jamie stands up a friend. Over Jamie’s shoulder she sees Owen watching in the window. He covers his mouth in mock outrage and then disappears with a wink.

“I wouldn’t fret about that,” Jamie says, laughing at Dani’s mortified groan. 

“Easy for you to say, you’re not stuck her with Hannah’s little ‘I-know-what-you-did’ smile all weekend.”

“Give as good as you get, Poppins.” Jamie leans forward and lowers her voice. “I have it on very good authority that Owen never went home last night.”

Dani’s jaw drops. “No way.” Jamie grins, her eyes sparkling. “How do you know?”

“Wouldn’t take a genius to figure it. The man’s wearing the same clothes he had on yesterday.”

\--

Dani’s decided it: it’s time for the kids to leave Bly. At least…for a day. She calls Mr. Wingrave, who gives his dry assent to use the car on Sunday. “Don’t call me again unless there’s an emergency,” he says, and hangs up. 

She sets the phone back in the receiver, disgusted. Hannah stands cross-armed and shakes her head. “He wasn’t always like this,” she says. “He’s not been the same since Dominic and Charlotte died.”

“But they’re his kids now…” Dani trails off. It’s no use – she’s encountered terrible parents of all varieties over the years. Nothing to do but love the children, and show them there’s hope beyond what family you’re given. “Hannah, I need a favor.”

“Anything, love.”

“Don’t get me wrong, I’m a good driver, but…”

Hannah grins. “But driving backwards in a priceless relic doesn’t exactly put you at ease?”

Dani loosens. “Would you?”

“Walk out onto the coast in the spring? No. But…luckily for you there’s some shops nearby where you’re planning to freeze those kids.” She looks toward the window, musing. “I’d like to treat myself to something nice.”

Got someone to impress? Dani thinks with a grin.

She bundles the kids tight – this trip is a fool’s errand, but Dani has to put her energy somewhere or she fears she might combust. And something else. The past seems strange, clearer, as if the bonfire’s glow still cast everything in a new light. Would she have been so moldable, so easily controlled by others if life had gone a different way? She thinks of her ten-year-old self, hugging her father’s shirts before they were packed away. Dani’s heart breaks for her; she wants to gather that girl in her arms, and whisper to her that everything will turn out ok. Just be brave.

No one did that for her, except Eddie. Even that simple blessing, in the end, became a blind habit of possession. Dani watches Miles and Flora bouncing excitedly in their jackets and mittens, and makes a promise that will not be their fate.

\--

Dani barely sleeps Sunday night, though she’s exhausted. Turns out the English coast is rocky and bleak, with barely a spot of sand. But, she thinks with a tired smile, to Miles and Flora it was an epic quest, filled with pirates and hunts for treasure. They slept the entire way home between shopping bags from Hannah’s own little escapade.

Monday morning, 5:30AM. Dani covers her face with her hands and laughs. Could she be more desperate? This was all they’d had, until that unforgettable night at Jamie’s: these mornings together in the greenhouse. It had been so peaceful; it had been enough. Now Dani felt insatiable…she felt a little crazy. The years of forced enthusiasm with Eddie ghost by: trying not to cringe when he leaned in for a kiss, endless dinners with Judy, while she planned Dani’s life for her. No. This is how it’s supposed to be.

She braces for it, but the mirror shows only herself looking back. 

She gives Jamie an entire half an hour to get settled into work. Generous enough, she thinks, to apply for sainthood. She carries the steaming mugs down the stone path to the greenhouse. The air is damp and fresh with growth. 

Dani halts at the lake, frowning. Blurred footprints deep in the mud lead out from the water toward the house. Dani relaxes after a tense moment,. The footprints are too big to be a child’s. Jamie was probably just doing whatever Jamie does to maintain this part of the grounds.

Jamie. Dani eases the door of the greenhouse open, careful not to spill as she goes through. The gardener is unpotting the rose starts, their roots in neat little balls along the bench. She hears the door close and looks up.

Dani fully expects to play it cool. She’s about to say something but scarcely has time to set the drinks down before Jamie rushes her with a kiss. “Christ, Poppins,” she laughs. “I thought you’d never show.”

Dani giggles and kisses back, gripping Jamie’s belt. Jamie glances at the mugs. “But now that I see you’ve come to poison me, I dunno how to feel.”

Dani bites her lower lip. “Taste it.” Jamie lifts an eyebrow. “The TEA! Taste the tea.”

“Dani, it might be that Americans just lack a certain…”

Dani presses a finger to the gardener’s lips and speaks in her best disciplinary tone. “Jamie Taylor. If you don’t take at least one sip of that tea, I’m leaving you here alone in this greenhouse.”

Jamie puts her hands up in surrender, takes a dramatic breath, and gingerly lifts the mug to her lips. Her brows perk in surprise. “Blimey, that’s…not too bad.”

Dani crosses her arms. “I’ve been watching you make it. It’s not…it doesn’t taste how I like it, but now I know how you like it.”

“Is that right?”

Dani’s heart flutters. She steps close again, breathes in Jamie’s smell. “Maybe not yet. But I’m sure I’ll figure it out.” She traces a thumb along where she can feel Jamie’s collarbone under her shirt, feels Jamie’s posture collapse ever so slightly. “Stay tonight?”

“Hoped you’d say that.” Jamie’s mouth curves in a half smile that makes Dani wonder if she’ll make it another twelve hours. “Otherwise I’ve packed a change of clothes for nothing.”

\--

A perfectly ordinary day at Bly Manor. Jamie plants the roses, to Hannah’s delight, at the entrance to the house and chapel. She hauls a ladder in to help dust a chandelier in the sitting room, gets to work filling a crack in the kitchen ceiling. The work flies by; the day drags on. Jamie feels the minutes tick by like sand grains slipping through an hourglass. The smell of short crust baking fills the house. Owen’s making a shepherd’s pie – Miles’ favorite. 

According to Dani, Miles’ had been doing exceptionally well, that he might even be ready to return to secondary in the fall. “I can teach him, but he needs his peers. He need a break from this place.”

Jamie wonders how Flora will get on. Will she be sent to primary? She snorts. Henry Wingrave sending the children to local school? No, he’d find new boarding schools for them. Even if it meant sending Miles to France, where no one had ever heard of the dead pigeon incident. It occurs to her then, polishing the tile filler, that Dani’s time at Bly Manor is limited. The Au Pair would advocate for the children, even if it cost her a job. Bly Manor without the kids? Without Dani? Jamie feels a rush of anxiety. Oh that everything could remain the same, that her boring little life could carry on as she’s planned. But, she reasons with a smile, not everything had gone to plan. And that bit was alright.

“Look at you,” Owen says, hand on his hip. “Blushing like a schoolgirl.”

Jamie scowls at him from the ladder. “Don’t you have some sort of pastry to bake?”

Owen watches her sanding the filler, picking off errant bits until the crack becomes invisible. “I’m happy for you.”

Jamie smirks. “Are you.”

Owen is struggling with words; Jamie sees he’s gotten emotional and climbs down the ladder, wiping her hands on her overalls. “Jamie, you…well, you’ve been through a lot. You’re my best mate. You’re always there for me, with Mum, with everything.” He squeezes her shoulders. “Its good to see you happy.”

She chuckles and gives Owen a half-hug. Another wave of anxiety passes after she hauls the ladder back outside. Dani wouldn’t be the only one out of a job.

\--

Dani manages to eat dinner – it’s delicious, and she reasons she’ll need her strength. Jamie shows few signs of distraction, joking with Owen and the kids. Every so often Dani catches her eyes lingering just a moment longer when everyone’s attention is elsewhere.

Time passed is a marvel. Dani barely recognizes the memory of herself arriving at Bly, stiff as a board and gray with misery. Hannah, once a thousand miles away, hangs on Owen’s every word. She’s wearing new clothes, elegant as always. But brighter. She’s brighter.

The children have changed, too. Dani still senses some fear in them, some phantom weight. But Miles especially has opened up – the stuffy maturity has faded. He teases and laughs like a kid again.

Bedtime finally arrives on one of the longest days Dani can remember. Jamie and Owen are busy trading puns and washing dishes when Dani finds a moment to lean into Hannah’s ear. 

“Hey. Take the night off.” 

Hannah stops wiping the table and gives her a surprised look. “And go where?”

“You know where,” Dani says with a flick of her eyes toward Owen.

“Oh really, I can’t…” Hannah says, cleaning the table with renewed vigor.

Dani places her hand gently on top of Hannah’s smooth arm. “Hannah, as your friend, I’m going have to insist on your happiness.”

Hannah blinks at her, as if she’s registering the word happiness for the first time. Her face warms. “You really are a good friend.”

When they hug, Jamie looks over her shoulder. “You two having a moment over there?”

Dani winks at her, and shuttles Flora and Miles off to their rooms.

Miles settles in to bed with a contented sigh and a fully belly. Flora wants a story. Dani can’t help but rub her face at her luck again. She tucks Flora in and regales her with her favorite picture book, The Tiger Who Came to Tea. 

Mercifully, Flora is asleep when Dani shuts the cover. She takes one more moment smoothing Flora’s hair back and tip-toes out of the room.

Jamie is casually leaned against the wall, covered in spackle, dirt on her boots. Dani takes her in. “How do you do that? Be a complete mess and still the hottest thing I’ve ever seen.”

Jamie doesn’t answer, just steps forward and rocks Dani in a deep kiss. Dani drags her by a calloused hand to the bedroom. She’s barely shut the door when Jamie pins her to it, hands on her ass, tongue in her mouth. Dani hooks a leg around Jamie’s hips, feeling her grind into her. When she feels Jamie’s hand begin to snake down her pants, she pulls away.

Jamie stops with a questioning look. Dani looks at Jamie’s mouth, back up to her heavy-lidded eyes. “Its my turn,” she says, voice husky. She puts a finger into Jamie’s chest and pushes her back toward the bed. Jamie laughs, nearly stumbling, and sits down hard on the mattress. Dani straddles her and pushes her flat on her back with a palm.

“I want to know,” she says, kissing her slowly. “What you taste like.”

Dani hears her mumble “blimey,” and doesn’t give her a chance to protest. Dani’s already unbuttoning Jamie’s overalls, pulling them down and off, removing each item until all that’s left are briefs. 

Dani stands and pulls off her sweater. She strips every piece of clothing slowly, watching Jamie’s wide eyes, her breasts covered in goosebumps. Jamie breathes deeper when Dani gets down to her underwear – a lacy thing she bought in a past life unknowingly for this moment. She unclips her bra and straddles Jamie again. She pulls Jamie’s hands up so that they cover her breasts as the bra comes off. Jamie shudders, her fingers finding Dani’s nipples as Dani’s teeth sink into her collarbone.

“Are you sure?” Jamie breathes. 

Dani doesn’t answer, just continues kissing and biting down Jamie’s side. She hooks her fingers into the waistband of her briefs and pulls them off. The wetness she sees makes her half-crazy with desire. Dani drags her fingers along the inside of Jamie’s thighs, getting a low moan and a hand in her hair. Dani runs a tongue along her thigh. Jamie arches her back and her voice is higher pitched than she’s ever heard it. “Dani…shit…”

It’s all the invitation she needs. Dani tastes her, and its is better than she could have imagined. She experiments slowly with pressure, movement, and rhythm, until Jamie is alternating between nodding frantically and moaning into a pillow. Dani revels in each layer of tension built on the next – higher and higher until Jamie can barely contain the noises she makes. Jamie’s hand grips her hair, and the other fumbles down to find Dani’s and hang on tight. Dani leans in and quickens the pace. Jamie’s thighs squeeze her like a vice. If she suffocates like this, Dani thinks, it’ll be a great way to go.

Jamie buries her face in the pillow and comes with a muffled shout. Dani feels each release and wave of it, crashing down until Jamie eases Dani’s head back with a shaky touch and a last gasp. She can scarcely believe she went her entire life not knowing sex could be like this. Something intoxicating. Something beautiful.

Jamie catches her breath, dazed. The sheets are cool with sweat where Dani lies to her. She runs her fingers through her brown curls, nuzzles her face into the crook of her neck. Jamie rolls over with an incredulous look. “You can’t be serious. That’s your first time?”

Dani shrugs. “I’m inexperienced. Not naïve.”

“Christ, Poppins.” 

Dani takes a deep breath, reveling in Jamie’s scent on her lips. A door opens somewhere inside her. The smell leads her to new places, where animal hunger and sublimely dark desire stir to life. She runs a hand along the smooth skin of Jamie’s shoulder, down along the muscles of someone who tends the earth for a living. Her hands. Dani finds them spellbinding. She traces the veins there, the scars and callouses. Jamie has stopped panting, and there’s a wildness in her eyes that makes the hairs on Dani’s neck tingle.

“You could do anything to me right now,” Dani says. Her voice sounds like it’s coming from somewhere distant and outside of her. “You could ask me for anything and I’d say yes.”

Jamie’s lips part, her breath strong and even. Her pupils swell and the emerald shade of her eyes darkens in a gleeful wickedness. “Who knew this Dani was under there, begging to be let out.”

Dani’s smile is evil and coy. Jamie’s hands are moving over her, grabbing and pressing until Dani’s smile disappears in a gasp. She kisses down her chest, tongue gliding over each curve. Her hand searches the inside of her thighs, bolder and rougher until Dani’s face is screwed up with want. Jaime’s rises to her knees and pushes down, pinning Dani prone onto the bed. “My turn,” she hisses, and slides inside Dani from behind.

The shock of it is sublime. Instead of resisting, Dani finds she opens up deeper. Jamie arcs her hand down and back and finds a place Dani wasn’t sure existed outside of myth. She wants it, harder and faster until everything is a blinding stream of feeling.

“Yes,” Dani moans into the pillow. Yes. It might be her new favorite word.

\--

She wakes for a reason she can’t pin down at first. Jaime is lit blue in the dim light, the curves of her muscular back softly rising with each breath. Dani watches her eyelids move, wonders what dreams or nightmares play there. 

Life has changed in an instant, but the instant stretches and bends the more she holds it – a silver thread connecting each moment to the next. What once seemed a chaos of fate is now the only path that ever could have been. Every day and every non-choice, across years and oceans. To this person, now precious to her. 

Dani’s attraction to Jamie, her sheer pleasure at the gardener’s company, blooms into something more in the peaceful dark.

Her full bladder nudges for attention again. She rises carefully from the bed, picks up a t-shirt. Shivers in the bathroom, washes her hands and pads back into the hallway. She smirks to herself. She’s sore in places that evoke welcome memories. 

A sound stops her: a scrape. A distant step dragging across the wood floor. She flinches at something cold and wet beneath her foot: muddy tracks. She follows them silently to the east wing. There the door hangs open.

Dani sets her jaw. Maybe Miles isn’t doing so well after all. 

The forbidden wing is identical in layout to the west, but the furniture here is covered with ghostly sheets and pushed into corners. Dust motes hover in the air, swirling as she moves through the shadows.

Rounding the corner to the sitting room, she finds them there. Flora and Miles standing close together with their backs to her. Dani crosses her arms.

“Alright. Who wants to tell me what’s going on.”

Both children whirl around, startled. They share a look and their expressions dissolve into a panic Dani’s never seen. “Ms. Clayton,” Miles says, his voice stern, but trembling. “You must go back to your room right now.”

“You’re telling me to go to my room? Rich, Miles. You’ll be spending a lot of time in yours, as soon as you explain to me what it is you’re doing up at this hour.”

“Ms. Clayton,” Flora pleads. “Please leave, please go,” her eyes fill with tears. A cold feeling seeps into Dani’s gut. Something is not right here. She peers down at the kid’s sock feet. Neither of them are muddy. 

“Is Peter here?” she whispers.

“He was,” Flora sobs. “He tried to stop the Lady of the Lake. He tried to help Ms. Jessel – ”

Miles is panting softly. “You must go,” he whimpers. Dani realizes too late that he is looking behind her.

A woman stands in a white gown in the dimness, her face covered by stringy black hair. She is completely still. Dani feels her mouth go dry. “Hello?” she whispers.

The woman moves forward with sudden and incredible speed. Dani stumbles backward with a yelp, throwing her arms out to shield the children. Miles ducks under and runs at the woman, shouting “No! Not again!”

A sickly white arm swings out, connecting with the boy and sending him flying into the wall. There is a sickening thump of his head against the wood and he crumples into a still heap. A primal surge of adrenaline roars though Dani like a train. She rockets forward. The back of her fist catches the woman across the face, brushing her hair away as it does.

There is no face there. No eyes to speak of, or a mouth at all. Just an ashen outline, as if someone had stretched fish skin over a skull and left it rot there. The smell hits her then: pond scum and offal, death and spite.

Dani begins to scream, but before any sound escapes a clammy hand strikes forward like a viper and closes around her neck. She claws madly at the Lady of the Lake, who pushes her backwards with little effort. Dani’s heels strike desperately against the floor as she’s drug toward through the empty rooms. She hears her own gurgling attempt at a breath and feels the pressure increase until her eyes feel like they will burst from her skull. Her fingers don’t even make a mark in the creature’s ice cold flesh. There is some inhuman strength in this thing, some will impossible to battle.

Through the encroaching tunnel vision Dani sees Flora following, tears streaming down her face. “Please, please don’t. I’ll be good, I’ll let you visit every night.”

Dani sees her own bedroom door pass by in a fog. They’ve reached the top of the stairs and the end of Dani’s oxygen when Flora tugs on the shredded white dress. “Please,” she whispers fervently. “I’ll go with you, just please let Ms. Clayton go.”

The thing pauses, turning its head to regard Flora. Dani tries with her last moment of consciousness to scream run, but only a hoarse croak comes out. The last thing she sees as the world goes black is a pale dripping limb reaching down to Flora.

\--

Jamie startles awake. Instinctively she reaches out. There is only empty space where Dani should be. She hears an odd sound, a muffled thumping somewhere in the house. Something is not right.

Jamie rises quickly and puts her overalls on. The hall is dark and empty. “Dani?” No reply. She runs down the wing, pulling a jacket over her shoulders. Both the kids’ rooms are ominously vacant, bedcovers thrown aside.

There outside their rooms, she sees them – tracks in a confusing pattern. Through the spots of mud are twin drag marks that hitch and bend. Signs of a struggle. Prints going toward the stairs freshly glisten. Jamie grabs what she needs and breaks into a run.

She reaches the main stairs just in time to see Dani burst out the front door. Jamie’s feet hardly touch the ground. She clears the three steps leading into the house and makes for the grass in front of the lake.

A surreal scene unfolds before her. Dani is chasing a white figure – a woman in a ragged dress. No, not a woman. Something else. It moves with purpose toward the lake, and it has Flora. A car roars to a stop in the gravel, alarmed voices calling out. Jamie sees Dani clutching her neck and choking through her breaths.

She remembers Rebecca waist deep in the muddy water that day. A bright woman once full of potential, staring into nothingness. She knows it then: Peter did come back, and he never left.

The sickly white form is carrying Flora out into the water. Dani is almost to the edge of the lake. But she’s injured, out of breath, and struggling.

She collapses easily when Jamie shoves her to the ground. 

“Sorry, Poppins. Can’t let you do it.” Dani reaches for her, stunned. Jamie doesn’t have time to tell her all the things she’d like to say: what it meant to be wanted by someone like Dani, and so many other things that have yet to flower fully. She can only hope that as she breaks eye contact and runs on that Dani knows already.

Jamie catches up to it just as the water reaches her knees. Her heart pounds, fury filling her from Flora’s pleading cries. She hopes this is right. There’s no going back.

“Oy, bitch,” she snarls, shoving the rotting thing’s wooden shoulder. “How bout you and me have a go instead?”

It turns to face her. A dread colder than the water of the lake seeps into Jamie’s chest. There is no face, just sickly outlines where one should be, like a corpse left in the water too long. Flora weeps, unable to wiggle out of its grasp.

Jamie hears Dani standing up, Owen and Hannah’s shouts. None of them will reach her in time.

A bloated hand flashes up and closes like a vice around her neck. Jamie gags and locks her fingers around its wrist, cold and slimy as fish skin. Not human, but solid.

“Please let her go!” Flora screams. Jamie wrestles with the iron grip around her throat. The pressure feels like it will crush bones. Her lungs burn in terror as she gasps in a vacuum. She makes it real, makes it desperate. She plays the part just long enough for it not to notice her other hand.

The double barrel of the shotgun slides out from the top of her jacket, coming to rest under the chin of the faceless undead. The ghoul shifts almost imperceptibly, as if she knows what’s about to happen. At that last moment, the world closing in around her, the gardener smirks.

Jamie pulls the trigger.

Several things occur in the same moment. There is the click of the firing pins striking the shells, and then the world goes silent. The featureless face vanishes in a blinding flash that sends the shotgun recoiling out of Jamie’s grasp into the water. Pieces of the monster’s head arc into the air as it disintegrates under a spray of pellets. Owen slides to a stop beside her, catching Flora’s limp body as it rolls from the dead lady’s grasp. Splashes fill the lake as putrid chunks rain from the sky.

A peace comes over her. It’s done. The high-pitched ring in her ears quiets as she sinks to her knees in the freezing water. Her grip weakens on the arm still crushing her in a stranglehold, the last of its will withering away.

She feels Dani then, trying to rescue her, hears her broken screams as through she’s underwater. 

Jamie is in the kitchen again, seeing her for the first time. Dani, with that determined look braving the woods. Her haunted voice, singing alone in the garden. Dani ablaze in the firelight, truth telling and beautiful. The warmth of her hands on Jamie’s face in the moment before they kissed. Holding her in bed while the tears fell. 

Jamie’s eyes close as the wave of blackness takes her. Beauty, she thinks, in the mortality of the thing. 

She lets go.


	7. Chapter 7

Henry Wingrave is not the type to believe in zombies. 

When Hannah calls him tells the tale, he figures he’d better get to Bly Manor so he can be there when they haul her away to hospital. The patent disbelief bleeds through on the call. When Owen joins in on the line, Henry wonders if there’s been some sort of gas leak.

But there is an emergency. Or rather, there was. Apparently both children have head injuries – a doctor has been there and gone. Said they’ll be fine. He might not even go, if it weren’t for the problem of his niece and nephew and a mass of wealth watched over by two people gone mad.

Hannah is waiting for him in the driveway. Henry gets out of the car, opens his mouth to say a prepared speech. She cuts him off before he can begin. “Come with me.” He follows her cautiously, smiling in the polite way one does to people not right in the head. 

“Hannah, dear, I think we’d better get inside.” 

She ignores him and marches off, and he is helpless but to follow her. He always was a little afraid of the housekeeper. They round the lake to a copse of trees, where an old barrel sits. She reaches up and touches the crucifix around her neck, mouthing a prayer.

“Hannah, what is this?”

“Something you need to see.”

Henry approaches cautiously, until he is within sight of the top of the barrel. Hannah grasps the lid. Her eyes lock with his. “Don’t scream.”

\--

For a long while, there is only gloom. An enveloping darkness that seems to take its own form, its own substance. Nothing stirs. It’s tempting to stay there. It feels safe. Some sort of doom exists out there beyond the dark. Threatening, smothering. Sounds and echoes, the wash of water all around.

But there is also something familiar there. She wants to ignore it, to float in the nothingness, but the familiar form murmurs soft things in her memory. Sensations creep in: heat, followed by tingling. A block of light appears and then disappears. When it happens again, she realizes that she controls the light. Her eyelids. Her eyes.

Jamie opens her eyes.

Owen sits in a chair beside her. He sees her awake and his tear-strewn features light up with promise. He jumps up and kneels on the floor beside the bed, putting a hand on Jamie’s arm.

“It’ll hurt when you speak. Take your time.”

Jamie frowns. What in the bloody hell is wrong with her throat? Every movement of her head sends lances of pain from chin to chest. She touches her neck gingerly, feels the swelling under her jaw. A bone-deep ache throbs in her right wrist. Her ears ring. Christ, it’s like she’s been thrown down a mountain. Owen follows her every movement, glasses fogging with tears. “Jamie. Are you…are you yourself?”

“Dammit man,” Jamie croaks, “get me something stiff to drink.”

Owen lets out a relieved laugh and wipes his eyes. She recalls it then with shot of panic: the icy hand around her throat. The shotgun ripping from her grasp. Dani. She chokes and throws the covers off in a rush. Owen’s strong hands grip her shoulders firmly. “She’s alright. She’s ok. Wouldn’t even let the doctor look at her until he’d seen you.” Jamie relaxes a little, wheezing. Breathing feels like taking air through a coffee straw. “But the doctor saw her and she’s ok. Hannah took him out afterward and showed him your handiwork. Old religious type. I think he’ll take this house call to the grave.” Owen gets a twinkle in his eye. “Dani’s out there now, taking Mr. Wingrave to task.”

Jamie questions with her eyes; it’s too much effort to speak. Owen pats her hand. “The kids are sleeping. Pretty bad concussions, but they’ll pull through. They can’t remember much. They’ll know what happened, of course. But I think you did Flora more than one favor.”

Lucky I didn’t blast her face off, Jamie thinks, relieved. She settles back into the pillows; her head throbs with a vengeance. Owen hands her a cool glass of water, which relieves the tide of pain for a few seconds. It’s hard to keep her aching eyes open. She closes them, just for a moment. Owen pulls the covers over her and stays by her side.

\--

“This is what’s going to happen,” Dani begins. Speaking is a struggle, her voice the rasp of a forty-year smoker. She knows what she must look like, bruised and battered, but there isn’t a thing in the world that can stop her from what she’s about to say.

Henry sits in a chair, straight as an arrow, his hands fidgeting in his lap like a boy. His eyes remain as wide as they were when Hannah brought him inside fifteen minutes ago. Dani hopes he hears her through the shock. “You’re going to take Miles and Flora away from this place.”

“Yes, clearly I-”

“I’m not finished.” He quiets, chastened. “You’re not going to put them in some boarding school a hundred miles away from each other. You’re going to take them to your home, to live with you.” Dani sees Hannah lift her brows in surprise. “Put them in school, or get them a tutor. Whatever you want. But don’t you dare send them away.” Dani raises a glass of water to her lips, sets it shakily down again. “I don’t know why you’re such a shitty uncle, or what terrifies you so much about these kids. But you must care on some level. You spend a lot of money to keep this place running. A gardener, a chef, a housekeeper. And you didn’t just hire anyone. You chose only the best, didn’t you?” Henry looks down at his hands and doesn’t answer. “Maybe you don’t think you deserve them. You’d be right.” Dani lets it hang in the air a moment, watches Henry Wingrave wilt in his three-piece suit. “Lucky for you, they’re kids, and they still adore you. Unlucky for them, you’re all they have.”

He looks up at her, bottom lip quivering. “You’ve been a coward. It’s time to change, Henry. Be brave. Face it.” Dani tugs her collar away from her bruised neck. “And if you can’t, well, that would be a bad decision. Because then you’d have to explain to the police how the body of Peter Quint ended up in your lake.” Dani can see his hands twitch. “And I bet they’d be interested in how he ended up strangled and dead after you said he robbed you and ran away.”

When Henry speaks, his voice is barely a whisper. “You don’t have to blackmail me, Ms. Clayton. I do…” he looks out the window toward the lake. “I do love the children.”

“Not as much as we love them. Not yet, anyway.”

He nods, and takes a shaky breath. “You are right. I have failed them. I can do better. I…I will need to get a bigger flat.” A tear streams down his cheek. “May I go to them?”

Dani relaxes, feels the exhaustion wash over her. “Of course you can.”

He gets up and timidly climbs the stairs. Hannah shakes her head. “Now I’ve truly seen it all.”

\--

Jamie doesn’t realize she’s fallen asleep, when the door opens. Owen is there; he looks toward the sound, touches Jamie gently, and leaves. She struggles to sit up, eyes bleary. It takes her a few blinks to focus on who stands there.

Dani trembles in the doorway, blue eyes brimming with tears. “Jamie?”

Jamie manages a half smile and a hoarse croak. “Poppins.”

Dani rushes to her and slows at the last moment, conscious of Jamie’s injuries. Jamie scoots to make room, wrapping her good arm around Dani. Dani holds Jamie’s face between her hands, foreheads together. She breathes like that for a moment before bursting into tears.

Jamie pulls her close and swallows against the razors in her throat. “Easy, there. Takes more than a soggy old pond zombie to knock me down.”

Dani laughs between sobs. “You’re fucking ridiculous.”

Jamie chuckles and coughs. Dani grabs the glass of water with a look of alarm. Jamie waves her off, catching her breath. “You going to dote on me like that all the time?” 

She reaches out and brushes tender fingers along Dani’s bruised jaw. Dani takes her hand, pressing it to her chest. 

“Get used to it.”


	8. Epilogue

Dani wants walk along the Thames hours before the show is supposed to start. Jamie doesn’t know why. She’s a bit annoyed, in fact. The flower shop has been open less than a month, there’s still a lot to do. But she doesn’t say no; she has a hard time refusing Dani anything. Anyhow, what’s the harm? A walk and then some music. It could do her good.

Dani drives them in the Land Rover to the waterfront. Sparse for a Friday – few people walk along the path. She takes Jamie’s hand and they walk to the railing overlooking the muddy water. Jamie scans the area. There’s no one around to give them any trouble. She puts her arm around Dani, who seems oddly nervous.

“Anything bothering you, Poppins?”

Dani shakes her head and forces a smile, which comes out flat. She hasn’t been sleeping well lately. Jamie wonders if the visions have returned. She hasn’t seen Dani this on edge in months. Jamie presses into her, patient, loving. Dani’s fingers tighten around her hand.

Dani checks her watch and glances around. “Maybe we should walk down a little.”

“Alright, yeah.” Jamie lets her arm fall to her side. Dani hooks pinkies with her and they walk along the south path. A man sits with a newspaper on a bench, but pays them no heed.

Dani stops suddenly. She’s breathing like someone about to jump from a great height. Jamie touches her arm, alarmed. Dani’s eyes are soft, her smile genuine this time. She squeezes Jamie’s hand and takes a step back.

Jamie turns slowly to look behind her. The man has set his paper down. At first, she’s not sure what’s off about him. He has a waxy appearance, an asymmetry Jamie can’t pin down at first. Then it hits her. His eye. He has a glass eye.

Jamie feels the elevator drop and the grinding halt of time standing still. The man’s mouth curls in the beginnings of a smile. He has a kind face, and a clear, beautiful gaze. Jamie’s voice is barely a whisper. 

“Mickey?”

The smile rises, filling his bright scarred face. “Sister.”

\--

Dani waits for two and a half hours. She watches the water flow by, people come and go along the riverbank. Every so often she looks over her shoulder at the two siblings, seated close on the bench. A few times she hears Jamie and Mickey’s clear laughter ring out. Near to sunset, she sees them embrace for a long moment. She stands and waits for Jamie, who walks slowly to her. Dani hooks her arm under the gardener’s and they make their way back to the car.

While the engine is warming up, Jamie finally manages a single word. “How?”

“It wasn’t your fault you couldn’t find him. I had to really dig. I told the file clerk I was looking for an old student. Luckily, he didn’t catch on that the years were all wrong.” She laughs. “Maybe he just thought I looked great for my age. Anyway. They moved a lot. Mickey’s adoptive parents changed his last name and they dropped the ‘e’ from his…” Dani stops. Jamie is bent over, her shoulders jerking. It takes Dani a moment to realize what’s happening; she’s never seen Jamie cry.

Dani holds her arms out. Jamie collapses into her and clings to Dani like she’s the only thing keeping her above water. “He had a good life,” she sobs. “They loved him. They gave him everything he ever needed. He went to school, he played music, he…” Jamie gasps. “He had a good life, Dani. He was alright. He was alright.”

“He remembered you,” Dani says softly, stroking her hair. “When I called him. He said he always remembered you trying to save him.”

Jamie wails and rocks back and forth. Dani is there, wiping her tears, holding her tightly against the wave of torment leaving the gardener’s soul. 

Jamie cries until she’s through, and rests a while in Dani’s arms. She sits up with a sniff, green eyes on the river. Dani’s feels the slight trembling in her hand receding.

“He’s alright,” she whispers.

Dani puts the truck in reverse when the time comes. She drives them home, shifting across the steering wheel, and never lets go of Jamie’s hand.

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first fanfic. Thanks to each of you for being so creative, inspiring, and kind to each other. Any time I need a reminder that humans can be awesome, I visit these pages.


End file.
